THE    WOMAN    WHO    SPENDS 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

A  Study  of  Her  Economic  Function 


By  Bertha  June  Richardson,  A.B. 

Holder  of  the  Mary  Lowell  Stone  Fellowship  for  1903 

With  an  introduction  by  Ellen  H.  Richards,  A.M. 

Author  of"  The  Cost  of  Living" 


"  In  America,  'where  tradition  and  family  play 
an  unimportant  part,  the  great  educator  is  the 
spending  of  money .'' 

Mrs.  Van  Font,  in  "The  Woman  Who  Toils." 


Second  Edition  Revised 


Whitcomb  &  Barrows 
Boston  .'.  IQIO 


GENERAL 

f    O' 


Copyright  1904,  1910 
ELLEN    H.  RICHARDS 


Thomas  Todd  Co.,  Printers 
14  Beacon  Street,  Boston,  Mass. 


INTRODUCTION    TO    REVISED 
EDITION 

Six  years  have  passed  since  this  little  book  was 
published,  years  which  have  emphasized  the  need  of 
thoughtful  spenders  in  the  life  of  the  busy  world. 
Efficiency  is  the  word  of  the  day.  Knowing  how  to 
work  is  the  test  of  daily  effort  and  "  theories  "  must 
meet  this  test. 

The  author  finds  no  reason  to  change  the  theories 
as  offered  in  the  following  chapters,  but  feels  that  the 
question  of  "  How  "  must  be  met,  however  falteringly. 
The  last  chapter  has  been  added  to  meet  that  just 
demand,  with  the  hope  that  those  who  have  patiently 
read  the  theories  may  find  some  practical  help  in  the 
application  of  them  to  the  daily  life  of  spending. 

BERTHA  JUNE  RICHARDSON  LUCAS. 
FEBRUARY,  1910. 


292098 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  emergence  of  women  from  the  sphere  of 
production  into  that  of  consumption  of  wealth  has 
brought  with  it  a  disturbance  of  the  economic  con- 
ditions of  the  Anglo-Saxon  world. 

During  the  period  of  readjustment  many  upheavals 
and  subsidences  have  left  most  women  in  a  very  inse- 
cure position,  and  with  a  great  uncertainty  as  to  the 
right  line  of  action.  It  is  in  the  hope  of  clearing 
the  ground  of  some  inherited  rubbish  and  of  opening 
a  new  vista  to  thoughtful  women  that  these  pages 
have  been  written. 

Social  economics  is  preeminently  a  woman's  prob- 
lem, especially  if  Munsterberg's  assertion  is  widely 
true  that  in  America  it  is  the  women  who  have  the 
leisure  and  the  cultivation  to  direct  the  development 
of  social  conditions. 

With  this  opportunity  comes  corresponding  respon- 
sibility, and  it  is  as  an  appeal  to  the  conscience  of 
the  women  of  the  land  to  think  on  these  things  that 
this  little  book  is  sent  forth. 

ELLEN   H.   RICHARDS. 
BOSTON,  1904. 


8£WEfiAL 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER       I.  Sight  and  Vision        ...         9 

CHAPTER     II.  Vital  Needs       .         .         .                31 

CHAPTER  III.  Imitation  versus  Independence  .       55 

CHAPTER    IV.  Choice      .....       83 

CHAPTER     V.  Satisfaction        .         .         .         .107 

CHAPTER    VI.  Responsibility   .         .         .         .129 

CHAPTER  VII.  How?       .         .        .         .         .     151 


SIGHT  AND  VISION 


True  economical  progress  lies  in  society  getting  control  of 
natural  powers  outside  of  man — not  cheap  labor,  but  powerful 
and  adaptable  motors,  machinery,  and  transit.  This  is  a  kind 
of  cheapening  —  cheapening  of  nature,  not  man,  which  can  go 
on  indefinitely. 

The  resources  of  the  world,  natural  and  historical,  may  be 
applied  to  maintain  society  generally  in  beautiful  and  healthful 
and  good  life,  or  to  provide  passing  gratification,  if  not  worse, 
to  the  desire  of  a  few.  In  either  case  the  consumption  circle 
will  be  filled  with  the  same  value,  but  the  real  wealth  in  the 
two  cases  will  be  widely  different. 

"  Studies  in  Economics"     William  Smart. 

/ 

To  woman  it  is  given  to  add  many  fold  to  the  enjoyment 
which  the  wealth  products  of  industry  are  able  to  secure. 

"  The  Economic  Function  of  Woman"     Edward  T.  Devine. 

The  economy  of  right  uses  depends  largely  upon  the 
homemaker. 

"  Elementary  Principles  of  Economics"     Ely  and  Wicker. 


THE  WOMAN  WHO   SPENDS 


T 


CHAPTER   I 

SIGHT    AND   VISION 

I  HE  RE  are  many  old-fashioned  women 
in  the  world  today,  and  we  are  glad  of 
it.  One  of  the  correct  tastes  at  present  is 
an  appreciation  of  the  "  old-fashioned."  The 
world  likes  old-fashioned  things  —  houses, 
furniture,  china,  brass,  silver,  and  women. 
Yes,  we  do.  Why  deny  it  ?  And  it  is  not 
all  sentiment,  nor  is  it  a  fad.  In  the  real 
love  of  the  old-fashioned,  there  is  always 
a  touch  of  the  personal.  Grandfather  de- 
signed the  old  bouse,  superintended  the 
building,  owned  the  woodland  where  the 
great  beams  were  cut,  and  made  with  his 
own  hands  many  a  nook  and  corner.  It 
may  be  his  only  monument,  but  it  stands 
for  grandfather.  The  tall  clock  —  why,  that 
was  one  of  your  earliest  friendships.  When 
you  were  good,  what  a  comfortable  tick  it 
had  !  When  you  were  bad,  what  moral  and 
spiritual  upheaval  that  know-it-all,  I-told- 

9 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

you-so  comment  could  produce  in  your  soul ! 
It  voiced  so  many  things  and  people ;  it  was 
grandmother  when  she  read  to  you  on  Sab- 
bath afternoons ;  it  was  the  Bad  Man  com- 
ing right  upstairs  after  you  in  the  dark ; 
it  was  Santa  Claus  on  Christmas  Eve,  a 
dozen  ghosts  on  Hallowe'en;  it  was  joy;  it 
was  sorrow ;  it  was  your  better  self ;  it  was 
the  voice  of  God  himself.  That  clock !  It 
will  never  be  consigned  to  an  antique  shop. 
But  though  the  love  of  the  old-fashioned 
house  and  the  old-fashioned  clock  may  not 
have  behind  it  an  association  with  our  own 
lives,  yet  there  is  still  the  personal  touch. 
We  love  the  work  of  men's  hands,  under 
any  conditions,  because  it  is  thus  we  come 
to  know  the  workers.  The  old  china  marks 
an  epoch ;  the  brass  candlesticks  introduce 
us  to  artists  of  another  time.  William 
Morris,  that  master  workman,  gives  the 
essence  of  the  love  of  the  old  when  he  says, 
"  In  looking  at  the  old  house,  we  please  our- 
selves by  thinking  of  all  the  generations  of 
men  that  have  passed  through  it,  remember- 
ing how  it  has  received  their  joy  and  borne 
their  sorrow,  and  not  even  their  folly  has 

10 


Sight  and  Vision 

left  sourness  upon  it." l  In  love  for  the  old- 
fashioned  we  are  not  blind  to  the  mistakes, 
to  the  evil  conditions  of  men  and  things  of 
other  days,  but  we  see  the  best  of  the  past 
in  its  relation  to  the  workers  of  the  past, 
and  its  possible  significance  for  the  workers 
of  today.  When  we  see  this,  we  are  look- 
ing through  the  doorway  of  grandfather's 
house  to  the  old-fashioned  woman  standing 
by  the  tall  clock.  What  was  she  ?  Where 
does  her  representative  stand  today? 

Opinions  disagree  at  this  point,  but  out 
of  the  strife  we  are  able  to  gather  some 
interesting  facts.  The  old-fashioned  wo- 
man was,  as  we  look  back  to  her,  a  woman 
who  made  the  most  of  life  as  it  came  to 
her,  who  understood  her  conditions  and 
needs  however  limited  her  horizon,  and 
whose  wise  adaptation  to  the  same  had  an 
important  place  in  the  work  and  progress 
of  her  time.  Her  representative  in  the 
life  of  today  is  the  woman  who  follows 
these  principles  in  her  larger  world  of  op- 
portunities. She  is  not  narrow-minded, 
nor  out  of  touch  with  life;  she  does  not 

lu  William  Morris."     By  Elizabeth  Luther  Gary. 


II 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

cling  to  old,  useless  —  mark  the  word  — 
customs  and  fashions.  She  believes  that 
grandfather's  house  with  its  big  rooms  is 
more  comfortable  with  steam  heat  than 
without  it.  She  is  living  the  larger  life, 
the  life  that  does  not  end  at  her  own 
hearthstone,  but  begins  there  and  goes  out 
in  sympathy,  in  interests,  and  in  helpfulness 
to  the  world  of  people  and  things  beyond 
her  threshold. 

Not  bound,  but  free,  she  lives  in  a  com- 
munity, patient  under  the  criticism  such 
independence  is  sure  to  bring.  She  will 
not  copy  her  neighbor's  lace  curtains  be- 
cause they  are  her  neighbor's.  She  fre- 
quently has  a  dress  made  over  in  the  house, 
and,  strangest  of  all,  she  is  wont  to  have  a 
liking  for  housekeeping.  She  is  a  woman 
who  spends  her  money  carefully,  judiciously, 
as  her  grandmother  did.  In  olden  times, 
women  thought  and  thought  and  thought 
before  they  spent,  often  making  the  spend- 
ing a  burden.  Now  women  often  spend, 
and  then  think  and  think  and  think.  Nor 
does  the  lack  of  thought  beforehand  ease 
the  burden  of  the  results  of  her  spending. 

12 


Sight  and  Vision 

The  old-fashioned  woman  of  today  gives 
to  the  world  some  of  the  best  things  the 
past  offered,  but  she  works  with  different 
materials  to  satisfy  different  standards. 
The  old  mahogany  bed  seems  out  of  place 
in  a  tiny  apartment-house  bedroom,  and  the 
old  tall  clock  is  no  longer  a  necessity.  For 
truly  times  have  changed.  Every  evening 
at  the  stroke  of  nine  grandmother  stopped 
on  her  way  to  bed  and  pulled  up  the 
weight  of  today's  time,  starting  tomorrow's 
on  its  way.  Now  noiseless  anniversary 
clocks,  wound  once  a  year,  keep  time's 
record  perfectly. 

Yes,  conditions  have  changed,  and  the 
whole  content  of  life  is  different.  We  are 
glad  if  we  are  wise.  Problems  now  present 
themselves  to  women,  and  are  attacked  as 
nobly  as  were  those  which  terrified  and  stim- 
ulated our  grandmothers.  But  the  lesson 
from  the  past  is  ever  the  same.  Success 
comes  only  through  intelligent  understand- 
ing of  conditions  and  wise  adaptation  to 
them.  Woman's  success  with  the  problems 
which  the  multiplied  demands  and  increased 
responsibilities  of  life  have  brought  will 

13 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

depend  upon  her  understanding  of  them, 
her  honest  effort  to  meet  conditions  with 
the  best  equipment,  and  upon  her  readiness 
to  adapt  herself  and  her  methods  to  the 
present.  Her  grandmother's  problems  will 
never  be  hers,  but  grandmother's  dealing 
with  conditions  as  she  knew  them  may  ever 
be  a  source  of  inspiration. 

There  are  many  women  in  the  world 
today  who  have  no  claim  to  be  called  "  old- 
fashioned  ";  who  have  not  brought  from  the 
past  the  best,  and  who  seem  to  stand  before 
the  present  empty-handed,  bewildered,  tried, 
and  sorely  vexed.  They  are  leaving  the 
high  schools  and  colleges,  and  taking  their 
places  in  the  life  of  the  world,  in  city,  town, 
and  country;  they  are  young  married  women 
struggling  with  the  first  problems  of  home- 
making;  they  are  mothers  whose  first  and 
greatest  care  is  to  provide  a  family  living 
out  of  a  fixed  allowance,  and  they  are 
all  experiencing  failure  or  discouragement, 
either  through  lack  of  right  ideals  of  life, 
or,  as  is  far  more  often  the  case,  through 
ignorance  of  the  way  to  make  practical 
application  of  their  ideals.  In  spite  of  all, 

14 


Sight  and  Vision 

sometimes  because  of  all,  the  progress 
shown  in  the  estimation  and  higher  educa- 
tion of  women,  they  are  finding  themselves 
without  a  firm  grasp  of  the  practical  side 
of  life.  This  is  seen  in  the  increasing 
numbers  who  attend  cooking  schools  and 
domestic  science  classes. 

When  the  "  servant  problem "  was  first 
agitated,  there  prevailed  an  attitude  of  con- 
demnation of  the  servant  and  sympathy  for 
the  mistress.  Years  of  patient  study  of  this 
subject  have  wrought  a  great  change.  The 
need  of  sympathy  and  understanding  be- 
tween maid  and  mistress  was  the  first  step 
to  be  insisted  upon  by  the  women  who  gave 
careful  consideration  to  the  problem.  This, 
to  their  minds,  was  to  be  gained  by  training 
of  both  mistress  and  maid.  The  mistress 
had  no  right  to  a  servant  until  she  knew 
the  value  of  time  and  strength  in  relation 
to  the  work  to  be  done.  She  could  not 
understand  her  servant's  problems  until  she 
understood  a  servant's  duties.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  great  stream  of  foreign  help  flow- 
ing into  this  country  needs  a  guiding  which 
the  mistress  alone  cannot  give.  Housekeep- 

15 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

ing  is  no  longer  a  matter  of  intuition,  but 
of  trained  minds  and  hands.  The  practical 
side  of  life  must  be  given  time  and  thought 
and  study  by  the  women  who  serve  it,  and 
this  includes  all. 

This  is  an  age  of  confessions.  We  can 
imagine  some  very  useful  and  helpful  con- 
fessions which  might  be  given  to  the  world 
of  women  by  women.  No  one  but  a  woman 
knows  the  motives,  the  plans,  the  hopes, 
which  actuate  a  woman  in  the  spending  of 
all  she  has.  Time  is  generally  spent  lav- 
ishly ;  effort  is  seldom  given  grudgingly.  If 
women  see  results  ahead,  they  hold  nothing 
back;  the  hard  lessons  come  when  the  re- 
sults prove  unworthy  of  the  time,  money, 
and  effort  spent.  Here  is  where  the  real 
economic  waste  comes  in  the  spending  world, 
not  money  waste  alone,  but  the  waste  of 
time  and  effort.  The  latter  waste  is  seldom 
considered,  and  until  it  is  the  former  waste 
will  not  be  checked.  Women  have  been 
told  for  a  long  time  that  they  do  not  know 
the  value  of  money.  Granting  this,  there 
lies  beyond  it  a  lack  of  knowledge  of  time 
value  and  of  effort  value.  Women  need  to 

16 


Sight  aud  Vision 

connect  all  three ;  need  to  be  honest  with 
themselves  and  learn  to  put  into  actual 
figures  the  amount  of  time,  money  and 
effort  they  are  constantly  spending,  and 
leave  the  next  column  for  results.  The 
proportion  between  them  will  be  more  con- 
vincing than  any  theorizing. 

Here  women  can  help  each  other.  Com- 
parisons of  the  ways  and  means  of  women's 
spending,  a  schedule  of  time,  money,  and 
effort,  to  establish  a  firm  relation  between 
these  three  to  gain  the  best  results  for  all, 
are  most  needed  in  the  woman's  spending 
world.  Such  a  schedule  should  be  formed 
deliberately,  and  held  to  as  steadfastly  as 
any  law  of  health.  Then  there  would  be 
visible  economic  gain.  There  are  women 
to  whom  no  true  and  good  proportion  of 
these  three  fundamentals  ever  comes,  be- 
cause their  spending  is  governed  by  neces- 
sity which  drives  them  hard  and  fast.  But 
the  majority  of  women  are  permitted  to  plan 
their  expenditure  of  all  these  things,  and  a 
keen  realization  has  come  of  the  importance 
of  intent  in  the  spending  of  all  they  have. 

Many  a  woman  of  training  and  education 

17 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

is  having  edifying  experiences,  for  it  is  not 
pleasant  to  feel,  the  first  year  after  gradu- 
ation, that  one  had  better  be  honest  and 
answer  "  not  prepared."  To  spend  perhaps 
fifteen  years  preparing  for  life,  only  to  find 
at  the  end  of  her  first  year  at  home  that  she 
has  wasted  time  and  energy  and  has  little 
to  show  for  them  is  unsatisfactory  enough. 
Her  dreams  of  what  seemed  so  simple  those 
last  June  days  have  been  proved  to  be 
almost  chimerical  in  the  face  of  the  world 
of  things  which  surround  her.  She  finds 
the  old  song  true,  "  Things  are  seldom  what 
they  seem."  She  has  not  been  successful 
in  applying  her  knowledge  to  this  new 
world.  She  has  a  secret  feeling  that  her 
mother  thinks  her  more  of  a  hindrance  than 
a  help  in  household  matters,  and  that  her 
father  smiles  a  trifle  sarcastically  when  she 
has  to  confess  that,  although  she  has  kept 
an  account  of  every  penny,  she  has  little  to 
show  for  the  money  spent.  Thus  she  be- 
gins the  hardest  lesson  yet  to  be  learned, 
making  all  the  old  lessons  help  her  in  sat- 
isfying the  new  demands  made  upon  her. 
Once  more  she  takes  down  the  old,  faded 

18 


Sight  and  Vision 

apron  and  enters  the  laboratory  to  make 
for  herself  new  experiments,  taking  with  her 
the  dusty  notebooks,  which  seem  to  suggest 
between  their  covers  some  help  for  the 
practical,  everyday  life. 

Courses  in  economics  —  many  girls  take 
them,  but  the  memory  of  a  few  vague 
phrases  and  a  wonder  how  they  ever 
passed  the  "exam"  is  about  all  that  is 
left  to  them.  One  does  not  overlook  the 
few  who  are  intelligently  interested,  and 
who  are  not  only  able  sometimes  to  answer 
a  question,  but  to  ask  one  as  well.  Those 
who  teach  this  subject  to  women  find  few 
students  whose  efficiency  or  attainments 
along  this  line  show  what  woman  might 
do  with  this  subject  if  she  would. 

But  women  have  entered  intelligently  and 
scientifically  into  the  study  of  the  various 
branches  of  biology.  The  study  of  life 
interests  everybody,  and  a  knowledge  of 
environment  is  of  practical  value  to  every 
woman.  The  biological  point  of  view  is, 
therefore,  a  good  starting  point  for  women's 
training  in  other  fields.  First,  because  it 
can  be  presented  simply;  and,  after  all,  it 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

is  the  great  value  of  any  science  that  out 
of  the  maze  of  special  terminology  and 
complex  laws  principles  can  be  drawn,  to 
be  successfully  worked  out,  not  in  a  labora- 
tory, but  in  the  life  of  the  world.  Second, 
because  the  subject-matter,  "life,"  is  that 
with  which  in  its  many  forms,  physical, 
intellectual,  social,  and  spiritual,  we  are  con- 
stantly striving.  The  first  step  from  this 
point  of  view  brings  us  to  the  entrance  to 
that  other  science  which  deals  with  the 
same  material. 

Economics  —  why  does  the  term  seem 
forbidding?  It  has  always  been  a  man's 
subject,  dealing  with  the  problems  of  his 
activities,  a  study  of  the  way  in  which 
man  produces,  exchanges,  and  distributes 
his  wealth  —  a  great  field  for  theory  and 
experiment  which  has  fascinated  great 
thinkers  for  centuries.  But  it  has  not 
been  considered  a  woman's  field.  The 
short  chapters  in  orthodox  treatises  as- 
signed to  the  consumption  of  wealth  do 
not  interest  women  because  they  are  usu- 
ally clothed  in  the  language  of  the  science, 
which  women  as  a  rule  do  not  understand, 

20 


UNIVERSITY 

OF  / 


Sight  and  Vision 

simply  because  they  have  not  been  trained 
to  understand  it. 

It  may  not  be  necessary  for  all  women 
to  understand  the  laws  of  production  and 
exchange,  but  the  time  has  come  when 
women  feel  the  need  of  study  and  training 
in  the  economics  of  consumption,  otherwise 
known  as  the  spending  of  their  money. 
As  long  as  men  were  the  spenders,  women 
were  excused  for  knowing  nothing  of  the 
laws  of  spending.  Conditions  of  life  made 
this  a  natural  position  for  women.  Their 
lives  were  largely  cut  off  from  the  outside 
world  of  economic  activity.  The  men  made 
the  money  and  retained  the  right  to  spend 
it  for  the  demands  of  home  and  family. 
The  idea  that  women  might  have  the  wis- 
dom to  make  money  and  to  spend  it  care- 
fully is  very  recent.  When  men  were  the 
spenders  it  was  but  right,  for  women  had 
then  no  training  beyond  that  of  their  own 
homes,  knew  little  of  the  work  of  the  world, 
and  no  doubt  would  have  wasted  much  that 
was  saved.  Today  it  is  the  woman  who 
spends,  and  upon  her  rests  the  responsi- 
bility for  the  standards  that  govern  the 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

spending  for  home  and  community.  It  is 
for  women  to  build  up  that  department  of 
economics,  so  long  neglected  by  the  econo- 
mist, the  science  of  consumption.  This,  in 
the  woman's  world,  means  the  spending  of 
money  for  life's  environment,  home,  travel, 
books,  music,  food,  dress,  all  things  included 
in  the  living  of  life. 

No  one  can  tell  what  woman  will  do  with 
the  subject.  She  may  refuse  the  old  termi- 
nology. Her  first  attempts  may  be  laughed 
at  and  called  unscientific.  But  nevertheless 
it  will  be  an  earnest  endeavor  on  her  part 
to  solve  her  own  hard  problems  in  the  best 
possible  way.  The  results  may  be  simple ; 
that  is  surely  to  be  desired.  Women  seem 
to  have  a  dread  of  new  terms  for  old  famil- 
iar things  and  phases  of  life.  Well-known 
methods  of  work  become  strange  and  far 
removed  when  first  renamed.  The  woman 
who  objects  to  the  application  of  the  bio- 
logical point  of  view  because  of  the  termi- 
nology is  not  wholly  unreasonable.  We 
can  all  sympathize  with  the  woman  who 
exclaimed :  "  The  laws  of  consumption  are 
Greek  to  me.  What  I  want  to  know  is 

22 


Sight  and  Vision 

how  to  spend  my  money."  A  most  famil- 
iar instance  of  this  feeling  is  the  reluc- 
tance with  which  the  revised  version  of  the 
Bible  has  been  accepted  by  the  majority 
of  people.  The  new  language  seemed  to 
hide  completely  the  old  meaning  for  many 
readers. 

Women  do  not  find  fault  with  the  way 
they  have  come.  They  wanted  what  the 
men  had  and  it  was  given  to  them.  They 
want  more.  When  the  sweet-faced  New 
England  woman,  living  her  quiet  life  in 
the  old  town  of  Hatfield,  stretched  out  her 
strong,  helpful  hands  to  all  the  generations 
of  girls  to  come,  by  making  a  woman's  col- 
lege a  possibility,  she  was  called  a  dreamer, 
a  visionary  woman,  who  had  better  be  looked 
after  by  some  strong-minded  man  who  could 
put  her  money  to  some  practical  use.  That 
vision  realized  has  given  to  hundreds  of 
women  ideals  and  standards  which  have 
made  life  full  and  rich.  We  would  not 
give  up  our  chance  of  gaining  a  vision,  but 
we  want  to  develop  with  our  vision  good, 
clear  sight. 

There  remains  the  present  problem  of 
23 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

the  thousands  of  women  whose  opportunity 
for  technical  training  in  any  school  or  class 
has  passed ;  women  who  have  already  taken 
up  the  responsibilities  of  the  home,  who 
have  neither  the  time  nor  the  inclination 
to  go  into  any  formal  work  along  these 
lines ;  women  who  are  spending  yearly  any- 
where from  fifteen  hundred  dollars  to  ten 
thousand  dollars,  the  great  class  of  present 
day  spenders  whose  influence  is  so  strong, 
whose  power  in  the  economic  world  is  be- 
ginning to  be  very  keenly  felt,  and  who 
establish  the  standards  of  life  for  the  larger 
part  of  society. 

How  can  these  spenders  be  reached  ? 
The  Federation  of  Women's  Clubs  of 
America  represents  thousands  of  women. 
The  organization  has  struggled  up  through 
years  of  ridicule  and  criticism.  In  spite  of 
mistakes  it  has  proved  its  usefulness,  and 
a  study  of  the  growth  and  progress  of  its 
interests  makes  the  scoffer  cautious  in  his 
condemnation.  An  "Afternoon  with  Brown- 
ing," or  an  "  Evening  with  Chopin,"  delight- 
ful as  such  entertainments  were,  no  longer 
satisfies  a  woman's  club  as  the  sole  aim  and 

24 


Sight  and  Vision 

purpose  of  the  organization.  From  subjects 
of  general  culture  for  themselves,  the  clubs 
have  turned  to  objects  of  practical  interest 
to  community  life,  with  good  results. 

The  club  that  has  for  its  object  the  light- 
ing of  the  town  is  to  be  praised  for  its 
spirit  of  civic  responsibility.  The  club  that 
maintains  a  model  tenement  to  show  the 
poor  women  of  the  community  how  to  have 
a  home,  clean,  healthy,  and  pleasant,  on 
their  limited  incomes,  is  of  positive  edu- 
cational value  to  society.  The  club  that 
started  to  take  the  interests  of  its  members 
out  of  their  homes,  to  give  women  broader 
interests,  to  take  them  out  of  themselves, 
has  found  that  such  a  journey  has  only  led 
them  back  to  their  own  homes..  The  in- 
terest in  the  broader  life  of  the  community 
has  given  to  women  a  keener  realization  of 
the  importance  of  each  individual  home  and 
life  in  that  community.  The  woman's  club 
is  teaching  women  mutual  helpfulness  as 
the  stepping-stone  to  mutual  advantage 
along  every  line,  and  wise  spending  of 
time,  effort,  and  money  is  now  the  first 
consideration  of  these  organizations. 

2S 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

Professor  Patten,  in  his  "  Theory  of 
Prosperity,"  makes  the  following  assertion: 
"The  greatest  problem  for  men,  after  all, 
is  the  problem  of  woman.  ;  Men  do  the 
work  and  bear  the  burden  of  today,  but 
women  shape  the  men  of  tomorrow.  The 
outgo  of  energy  toward  them  creates  a 
store  upon  which  the  future  can  draw."\ 
This  is  true.  But  women  of  today  shape 
also  the  women  of  tomorrow,  and  in  the 
light  of  this  responsibility  the  question  of 
spending  is  one  of  their  greatest  problems. 
Women  have  had  the  vision,  and  have 
worked  for  its  realization.  Many  of  the 
world's  most  helpful  activities  have  been 
the  results  of  the  visions  of  women.  Could 
the  poor  of  London,  indeed  of  all  England, 
ever  measure  the  blessings  of  Mrs.  Bosan- 
quet's  work  and  study  for  the  betterment 
of  their  condition?  How  few  of  the  great 
reforms  in  the  living  of  life  have  been  apart 
from  the  influence  of  women  !  Lady  Somer- 
set and  England's  liquor  question,  Maud 
Ballington  Booth  and  America's  prison  re- 
form, the  settlements,  the  day  nurseries,  the 
nurses'  settlements,  all  bear  witness  to  their 

26 


Sight  and  Vision 

unsparing  activity  in  the  interest  of  their 
sisters  and  their  brothers.  Great  and  worthy 
indeed  are  such  movements,  and  helpful 
alike  to  individual  and  to  society. 

Yet  the  pursuance  of  these  larger  aims 
should  not  blind  the  woman  to  the  nearer 
demands  of  her  own  home  sphere.  We 
would  none  of  us  wish  to  trip  over  the 
small  obstacle  in  the  way  because  our  faces 
are  set  only  toward  the  end  of  the  road. 
That  end  would  be  gained  more  quickly 
and  with  fewer  hurts  and  mis-steps  if  we 
would  take  heed  to  our  feet  that  they 
stumble  not  over  little  hindrances.  It  is 
sometimes  easier  to  let  the  vision  of  the 
mountain-top  on  the  distant  horizon  veil 
our  eyes  from  the  commonplace,  everyday 
sights  near  at  hand  in  the  valley.  But  it 
is  these  that  we  need  to  look  at,  to  which 
we  must  open  wide  our  eyes,  if  the  mani- 
fold matters  of  practical  life  are  to  receive 
the  attention  they  deserve.  Let  us  then 
train  our  eyes  for  both,  to  behold  the  vision 
and  to  store  it  up  in  heart  and  brain,  but 
at  the  same  time  to  have  the  power  of  clear, 
uncompromising  sight. 

27 


VITAL   NEEDS 


Strength  of  desire  determines  value;  hence  value  is  indi- 
vidual and  not  universal. 

Demand  means  desire  backed  up  by  means  or  purchasing 
power.  Ely  and  Wicker,  p.  97. 

The  disturbance  or  catastrophe  called  disease,  excluding 
accidents,  is  not  simply  to  be  met  by  treatment,  although  that 
may  be  necessary  and  beneficial,  but  is  to  be  prevented,  and 
that  with  so  much  perfection  that  it  shall  altogether  become 
extinct,  or  remain  as  a  mere  historical  ghost. 

...  in  the  earnest  hope  of  the  day  when  men  .  .  .  shall 
find  in  the  study  of  the  natural  body  the  grandest  work  the 
liuman  intellect  can  command. 

"Vita  Medica^  Sir  B.    W.  Richardson. 


CHAPTER   II 

VITAL    NEEDS 

"T  ET  your  needs  rule  you;  pamper  them, 
*-'  you  will  see  them  multiply  like  insects 
in  the  sun.  The  more  you  give  them,  the 
more  they  demand."  These  words  are  from 
that  wise  discussion  of  the  "Simple  Life," 
by  Charles  Wagner.  But  these  needs  do 
not  necessarily  mean  vital  needs;  rather, 
the  multitude  of  wants  that  men  develop. 
By  vital  needs  we  mean  the  primary  needs 
of  the  physical  life,  the  material  things 
which  men  must  have  in  order  to  live,  such 
as  food,  clothing,  shelter,  air,  and  sunlight. 
We  sometimes  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that 
such  vital  needs  are  very  simple,  and  that 
life  will  exist  when  they  are  most  crudely 
supplied.  A  rose  bush  in  the  garden  often 
surprises  us  by  the  way  in  which  it  keeps 
life  in  its  branches  long  after  all  care  of 
it  has  ceased,  when  the  weeds  have  grown 
taller  than  itself  and  seem  to  choke  it,  when 
little  sunlight  reaches  it  and  the  tiny  buds 

31 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

never  bloom.  Thus  men  are  able  to  live 
under  bad  conditions,  with  impure  food, 
dark  and  unsanitary  homes,  with  perhaps 
never  a  ray  of  sunlight,  but  only  a  reflection 
of  it  from  some  narrow  court.  Not  only 
are  men  able  to  live  under  such  conditions, 
but  they  toil  for  money  to  enable  them  to 
spend  for  these  conditions. 

The  word  life,  however,  in  the  biological 
world,  implies  growth  and  development  in 
some  way,  along  some  line,  either  ascending 
or  descending  in  the  scale.  Whether  it  be 
the  movement  up  or  the  sinking  back  will 
depend  upon  the  conditions  under  which 
the  life  is  lived.  Therefore,  for  our  purpose 
in  the  question  of  spending,  we  may  take 
vital  needs  to  be  not  only  primary  needs 
under  any  conditions,  but  those  created 
and  supplied  under  the  demands  of  the 
very  best  development  of  physical  life. 
This  extends  vital  needs  to  conditions  of 
life,  and  will  include  those  material  things 
which  men  must  have  in  order  to  live 
under  the  best  conditions,  such  as  pure 
food,  healthful  clothing,  sanitary  houses, 
sufficient  air  and  light.  These  are  essen- 

32 


Needs 

tial  to  the  best  development,  and  in  the 
effort  to  secure  them  the  majority  of  people 
spend  two-thirds  of  their  income.  Why, 
when  so  much  time,  money,  and  effort  are 
expended,  we  do  not  have  the  best  results 
in  health  and  happiness  is  the  problem  for 
the  spending  woman. 

One  reason  for  the  failure  seems  to  be 
in  the  conflicting  opinions  as  to  just  what 
the  vital  needs  of  life  are.  The  word 
"needs"  has  become  so  closely  connected 
with  "wants"  that  it  is  hard  to  discrimi- 
nate between  them.  The  whole  matter  is 
in  a  hopeless  jumble  of  false  values  and 
standards.  The  woman  who  spends  five 
thousand  dollars  a  year  thinks  she  has 
hardly  enough  to  live  decently  on;  one 
with  ten  thousand  considers  that  with  exer- 
cise of  proper  caution  she  is  just  comfort- 
ably well  off.  Yet  tomorrow  you  may  meet 
a  woman  who  has  but  fifteen  hundred  dol- 
lars, and  she  actually  tells  you  with  con- 
viction that  life  is  worth  living  now  that  the 
question  of  need  is  behind  her!  "Needs," 
to  such,  have  become  a  variable,  determined 
by  the  number  of  desires  the  size  of  their 

33 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

incomes  permits  them  to  satisfy,  and  the 
satisfaction  of  these  desires  may  or  may 
not  supply  rightly  the  vital  needs  of  life. 

From  this  we  learn  that  while  the  phys- 
ical standards  are  the  same  for  all,  i.  e.,  the 
physical  needs  of  life  are  the  same,  yet 
the  standards  of  life  are  widely  different, 
depending  upon  the  education  and  training, 
advantages  and  opportunities,  of  the  indi- 
vidual. Physical  standards  were  permitted 
to  grow  up  haphazard,  as  the  result  of  the 
experiments  of  former  generations,  or  as 
natural  consequences  of  habit  and  custom. 
Sickness  and  death  were  states  men  could 
not  escape  and  could  in  no  wise  control. 
But  the  last  century  has  developed  an  en- 
tirely new  point  of  view.  First,  that  it  is 
possible  to  know  exactly  the  means  required 
for  the  best  satisfaction  of  physical  needs, 
and  then,  most  important  and  inspiring  to 
the  woman  who  is  ready  to  learn,  that  any 
one  with  fair  opportunity  and  appreciation 
of  the  value  of  this  knowledge  may  gain  it 
through  the  necessary  education  and  train- 
ing. A  real  necessity  to  meet  the  demand 
for  this  knowledge  rests  upon  the  women 

34 


Needs 

who  today  spend  for  physical  needs.  Eco- 
nomically, a  woman's  chief  function  is  the 
spending  of  her  money,  and  physical  needs 
become  of  great  importance  to  the  eco- 
nomic world  because  of  the  large  amounts 
of  money  that  will  always  be  put  into 
circulation  through  expenditure  for  these 
needs. 

In  the  relation  of  women  to  the  getting 
and  spending  of  money,  the  world  has  seen 
a  most  interesting  development.  Years  ago, 
when  our  nation  was  a  nation  of  country 
folk,  women  did  little  of  the  spending,  but 
helped  much  in  the  production  of  wealth. 
This  was  the  result  of  the  conditions  of 
living  which  obtained  in  those  days.  Before 
the  invention  of  machinery,  before  even  the 
hand  machinery,  such  as  sewing  machines 
and  farm  implements,  came  into  use ;  when 
transportation  was  slow  and  expensive,  being 
entirely  by  coach ;  when  communication  be- 
tween cities  and  towns,  between  home  and 
a  possible  market,  was  by  slow  post  or  by 
word  of  mouth,  which  meant  a  long  jour- 
ney, production  of  most  of  the  needs  of  life 
centered  about  the  home.  Women  very 

35 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

naturally  came  into  close  touch  with  this 
production,  which  called  for  little  circula- 
tion of  money,  but  for  the  work  of  men's 
hands.  Men  raised  sheep  and  cattle ;  women 
did  the  spinning  and  the  weaving.  Men 
tilled  the  soil  and  harvested  the  crops; 
women  "did  their  own  work,"  which  did 
not  end  with  the  preparation  of  three  meals 
a  day,  but  covered  the  actual  manufacture 
of  many  useful  wares,  such  as  candles  for 
lighting  the  house  and  soap  for  the  family's 
use.  Often  the  dairy  and  the  poultry  were 
her  especial  charge,  and  the  "  butter  and 
egg  money  "  her  only  spending  money.  The 
economist  says,  "  Those  were  days  when 
women  together  with  men  produced,  helped 
to  make  the  wealth  of  the  nation,  and  that 
was  economic."  Then  there  were  spinning 
wheels,  now  there  are  factories.  Then  the 
home  loom  was  part  of  the  furnishing  of 
almost  every  house,  now  the  mills  do  the 
work.  The  country  has  moved  to  town. 
Women  can  now  buy  all  the  necessities 
they  at  one  time  had  to  manufacture.  Con- 
sequently, living  is  easier.  Today  women 
are  not  spinning  and  weaving ;  they  are 

36 


Vital  Needs 

buying  dress  goods  by  the  yard  and  linen 
by  the  bolt.  They  are  not  producing ;  they 
have  thrown  off  the  yoke  of  economic  pro- 
duction. They  only  spend. 

Yet  this  is  only  partly  true.  Woman  is 
not  producing  in  the  same  ways  that  she 
once  did.  She  does  not  work  with  the  raw 
materials.  She  may  not  turn  wool  into 
yarn,  but  she  buys  blue  yarn  and  knits  a 
shawl.  That  is  still  production.  She  buys 
a  sixty-two-cent  kitchen  chair,  stains  it  with 
a  Flemish  oak  stain,  tacks  a  cushion  into 
the  seat,  and  puts  the  chair  in  the  dining 
room.  That  is  also  production.  She  buys 
a  dollar's  worth  of  lace,  combines  it  with 
other  materials,  and  has,  as  a  result,  some- 
thing which  represents  what  she  might  have 
paid  ten  dollars  for.  Or  she  converts  a 
packing  box  into  a  dressing  table  with  the 
aid  of  tacks,  hammer,  and  a  few  yards  of 
gay  cretonne.  That  is  economic  produc- 
tivity. Call  it  by  what  name  you  choose, 
"  harmonizing  of  products,"  "  combining  of 
materials,"  such  production  takes  the  place 
of  a  series  of  activities  which  would  produce 
the  articles  identical  in  use  to  be  purchased 

37 


7/^^  Woman  Who  Spends 

in  the  shops.  Many  women,  therefore,  have 
not  lost  their  function  as  producers  of  eco- 
nomic commodities,  but  still  possess  it,  per- 
haps with  even  greater  power,  because  of 
the  expansion  along  all  lines  of  demand 
and  supply.  On  account  of  the  change  in 
the  economic  conditions  of  production,  how- 
ever, women  have  gained  a  whole  new  field 
of  economic  activity,  that  of  consumption. 

For  women,  economic  consumption  is  the 
spending  of  money.  Their  problem  is  not, 
What  shall  be  produced  to  supply  my 
needs?  but,  How  shall  I  spend  to  satisfy 
my  needs  ?  The  greater  the  opportunities 
for  spending,  the  wider  is  the  field  of  choice ; 
and  the  very  complexity  which  the  many 
sides  of  life  present  makes  us  realize  the 
importance  of  recognizing  the  things  that 
are  vital  and  therefore  needed.  We  are 
told  that  life  is  too  complex.  That  is  true, 
but  what  can  we  do  about  it  ?  The  answer 
comes  that  men  should  live  more  simple 
lives  by  cultivating  simple  pleasures,  simple 
habits,  by  having  only  simple  needs.  This 
seems  at  first  to  be  a  very  easy  solution  of 
our  problem;  but  when  we  attempt  to  put 

38 


Vital  Needs 

it  into  practice,  we  find  that  the  fight  has 
only  been  transferred  from  the  word  need  to 
the  word  simple.  There  is  as  much  theol- 
ogy in  the  simple  life  as  in  religion ;  and 
although  all  men  agree  that  it  is,  like  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  within  you,  to  be  real- 
ized it  must  come  out,  and  few  agree  on  its 
expression. 

As  life  is  inseparable  from  its  environ- 
ment, some  of  the  vital  needs  must  depend 
upon  the  creating  and  developing  of  the 
environment.  What  do  we  mean  by  envi- 
ronment ?  "  Surroundings,  conditions,  in- 
fluences, or  forces,  by  which  living  forms 
are  influenced  and  modified  in  their  growth 
and  development"1  This  would  represent 
first  of  all,  then,  a  satisfactory  treatment  of 
the  practical  side  of  life,  all  the  things 
which  make  for  physical  well-being.  This 
side  of  life  is  represented  by  our  food,  good, 
bad,  or  indifferent ;  by  our  clothes,  thick  or 
thin,  loose  or  tight,  cheap  or  expensive ;  by 
our  houses,  small  rooms  and  bad  air,  or  large 
rooms  and  pure  air ;  dark,  stuffy  apartment 
in  a  "desirable  neighborhood,"  or  sunny 

i  Webster/ 

39 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

upper  apartment  on  the  edge  of  respecta- 
bility, without  an  elevator.  The  practical 
side  of  life  represents  all  the  many  sets  of 
conditions  and  influences  which  surround 
human  life.  Today  it  is  the  woman  who 
^spends  largely  to  bring  about  the  fulfillment 
of  some  idea  or  other  of  what  these  con- 
ditions should  be,  for  herself  and  others, 
and  her  methods  are  being  studied  and  criti- 
cised as  her  results  are  praised  or  con- 
demned. She  asks  a  practical  question, 
"Are  there  not  some  needs  of  life  which 
are  universal  and  of  which  I  can  be  sure  ?  "j 
Ttn  the  biological  world,  the  development 
of  an  animal  or  plant  organism  is  not  a 
matter  of  chance,  but  of  laws  regarding 
heat,  light,  food,  protection,  etc.,  which 
govern  the  life  growth,  j  In  man,  the  high- 
est organism,  it  is  the  same.  There  are 
laws  upon  which  agreement  is  now  sure, 
as  the  result  of  years  of  study  and  experi- 
ment. Our  muscles  develop  in  strength 
according  to  the  use  given  them.  An  arm 
tied  too  long  at  one  side  becomes  useless. 
The  blood  is  the  great  source  of  supply  for 
our  bodies,  and  the  strength  of  lungs  and 

40 


Vital  Needs 

brain,  in  fact  of  all  the  organs,  depends 
upon  the  good  or  bad  circulation  of  the 
blood.  This,  in  turn,  depends  upon  the 
purity  of  the  air  we  breathe,  the  food  we 
eat,  the  protection  or  exposure  we  give 
our  bodies.  All  these  facts  are  known 
to  women.  No  woman  who  is  content  to 
remain  ignorant  of  such  facts  should  be 
intrusted  with  money  to  spend  for  the 
maintaining  of  what  she  conceives  to  be 
the  proper  life  environment.  The  trouble 
lies  in  seeing  these  facts  in  relation  to 
one's  own  spending. 

Take,  for  example,  the  general  ignorance 
on  the  subject  of  ventilation.  Many  people 
expect  pure  air  only  out  of  doors.  The 
possibility  of  having  pure  air  in  their  liv- 
ing rooms  requires  a  more  thorough  under- 
standing of  the  system  of  heating,  with  the 
theories  of  draughts,  than  most  people  will 
take  time  to  learn.  As  long  as  so  much  of 
life  is  spent  indoors,  ventilation  ought  to 
interest  everybody,  and  it  would  if  people 
realized  its  close  connection  with  their 
health.  Good  ventilation  is  a  vital  need. 
The  science  of  plumbing,  as  it  is  rapidly 
41 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

developing,  is  another  instance  of  the  grow- 
ing appreciation  of  the  importance  of  those 
things  so  long  regarded  as  mere  conven- 
iences. Good  health  and  bad  plumbing 
cannot  exist  under  the  same  roof.  Today 
no  sensible  man  invests  his  money  in  a 
house  which  fails  to  meet  this  test. 

Women  have  failed  and  are  still  failing 
to  meet  the  requirement  in  these  physical 
matters  of  pure  food,  healthful  dress,  proper 
ventilation,  sufficient  exercise.  The  Italian 
mother  who  insists  upon  giving  her  six 
weeks  old  baby  macaroni  is  pitied  for  her 
ignorance  by  women  who  know  no  more 
about  the  physical  needs  of  a  six  weeks 
old  baby  than  does  the  foreign  mother. 
Yet  often  much  more  serious  mistakes  are 
made  by  the  woman  who  ought,  from  her 
superior  advantages  of  birth,  education,  and 
environment,  to  know  better.  The  average 
woman's  reason  or  justification  for  the  food 
which  appears  upon  her  table  is  either  the 
memory  of  what  she  always  had  at  home  or 
the  suggestions  afforded  by  the  shops  she 
visits.  Few  have  any  real  knowledge  of 
food  nutrients  and  their  proper  combina- 

42 


Vital  Needs 

I 

tions.     Food  is  to  many  rather  a  question 
of  amount  and  variety  than  a  question,  as 
it   should    be,    of    nourishment;    and   it   is 
often  the  case  that  where  most  is  expended 
for   food,    good    health    is    not    the    result. 
Doctors   grow   plainer   spoken    every   year, 
and   more    than   one  woman  is    being  told 
today   that    the    sickness    in    her   house    is 
caused  by  lack   of   proper   nourishment   as 
the    result    of    her    own    ignorance.     The 
"  macaroni    baby "    is    not  the    only  one  to 
be  pitied.     The  child  who  is  allowed  to  eat  , 
first  what  he  likes,  be  it  chocolate  candy  or  j 
a  breakfast  food,  is  on  a  sure  road  to  later! 
suffering. 

The  woman  who  spends  must  know  not 
only  that  pure  food  is  essential  to  a  well 
body,  but  what  pure  food  is  as  well. 
Women  are  apt  to  buy  first  what  is  wantech 
and  liked,  or  what  will  meet  the  possibilities  ^ 
of  their  purses.  If  it  happens  to  be  what 
is  needed  for  the  best  physical  development, 
well  and  good,  but  if  not,  waste  of  money 
and  strength  result.  The  principal  aim  of 
modern  medical  science  is  to  prevent  disease, 
to  force  upon  people  conditions  conducive 

43 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

to  health.  The  home  is  the  first  place 
where  such  measures  should  be  put  into 
effect.  Poor  ventilation,  uneven  heating, 
food,  good  and  wholesome,  perhaps,  when 
brought  into  the  home,  but  deprived  of 
much  of  its  nutritive  power  from  careless 
keeping  or  wrong  preparation  —  these  are 
some  of  the  hindrances  found  in  the  homes 
for  which  women  spend. 

It  is  easy  to  frighten  the  ignorant  foreign 
mother  into  coming  to  the  milk  depot  for 
pure  milk  for  her  baby  by  telling  her  that 
the  baby  will  die  if  she  does  not  come. 
But  it  is  not  so  easy  to  tell  the  mistress 
of  a  ten-room  apartment  that  the  room  in 
which  the  children  sleep  is  too  small  to 
give  them  the  proper  amount  of  good  air* 
or  that  in  choosing  their  clothes  health  and 
comfort  have  been  sacrificed  to  fashion.  A 
sleeping  room  with  but  one  window  open- 
ing on  a  court,  the  room  so  small  that  to 
open  the  window  causes  a  draught  and  to 
keep  it  closed  makes  the  air  heavy  and 
close,  is  not  conducive  to  the  health  of  a 
i  little  child  or  of  a  grown  person.  A  sudden 
change  from  the  wearing  of  the  long  stock- 

44 


Vital  Needs 

ing  to  the  fashionable  half   hose  has  cost  ] 
more  than  one  little  child  a  hard  sickness. 
Such  things  as  these  are  a  positive  menace 
to  life. 

Good  care  presupposes  a  knowledge  of 
the  needs  of  the  person  cared  for.  That  is 
common  sense;  it  is  also  biology.  Life 
does  not  develop  to  the  fullest  when  hin- 
dered at  every  step  by  outside  forces,  or 
when  cut  off  from  some  of  the  supplies 
most  necessary  to  its  existence.  If  women 
will  grasp  the  connection  between  the  spend- 
ing of  their  money  and  the  results  in  just 
the  physical  needs  of  life,  and  not  be  satis- 
fied until  through  exercise  of  knowledge 
and  care  they  are  able  to  make  their  tables 
wholesome  as  well  as  attractive  or  econom- 
ical, their  surroundings  clean,  their  clothes 
properly  protective  as  well  as  ornamental, 
there  will  be  hope  that  they  will  become 
competent  to  offer  a  wiser  scheme  of  satis-  « 
faction  for  other  needs. 

This  is  not  a  day  of  the  privileged.  Any 
woman  who  cares  to  think,  who  wishes  to 
know,  has  opportunities  to  acquire  a  knowl- 
edge which  will  enable  her  to  present  a 

45 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

proper  satisfaction  for  these  vital  physical 
needs.  There  are  free  lectures  on  such 
subjects  given  often  in  all  cities  and  large 
towns.  There  are  classes,  public  and  pri- 
vate, in  all  departments  of  the  subject,  in 
cooking,  in  housekeeping,  in  home  economic 
problems  of  all  sorts.  The  newspapers  and 
weeklies,  magazines  and  books,  are  filled 
with  articles  on  these  practical  subjects; 
and  if  lectures  and  classes  are  out  of  a 
woman's  reach,  she  may  always  read. 

For  dress,  for  house,  for  hundreds  of 
"  little  things "  from  a  paper  of  pins  to  a 
prayer  book,  women  spend,  and  there  is  so 
little  connection  between  effort  and  result. 
We  either  over-emphasize  the  importance  of 
a  result  and  throw  away  time,  money,  and 
energy  to  secure  it,  or  we  undervalue  a 
result  and  give  but  a  feeble  effort  to  gain 
it.  We  fail  to  get  a  proper  proportion 
between  effort  and  result.  If  we  live  be- 
yond our  physical  means,  that  is,  our  supply 
of  life,  the  best  development  is  impossible. 
This  is  a  simple  law  of  Nature,  and  it  acts 
upon  some  very  practical  matters.  A  heavy 
fur  collar  and  a  large  muff  plus  a  thin 

46 


Vital  Needs 

walking  suit  and  paper-soled  French  boots 
is  a  dangerous  combination  of  materials 
for  winter  use.  The  woman  who  stamps 
her  foot  into  a  shoe  two  sizes  too  small 
need  send  no  pitying  glances  toward  China 
as  long  as  she  remains  ignorant  of  or 
indifferent  to  her  own  physical  needs. 
The  college  girl  whose  major  subject  is 
biology  often  fails  to  connect  the  knowledge 
she  is  storing  up  with  the  best  development 
of  her  life,  her  best  physical  life,  and  re- 
mains indifferent  to  the  helpful  application 
to  her  own  living  she  might  make  of  the 
laws  of  life  she  is  learning.  She  treats  her 
laboratory  specimens  with  more  care  and 
intelligence  than  she  would  dream  of  giving 
to  her  food  and  exercise  and  work.  She  // 
eats  when  she  feels  like  it,  takes  a  certain 
pride  in  the  boast  "  that  she  really  has  had 
no  exercise  for  a  week,"  and  sits  for  hours 
studying  in  a  hot,  close  room.  [The  school 
girl  who  lunches  on  cream  puffs  five  days 
of  the  week  soon  is  living  beyond  her  phys- 
ical income  and  has  to  drop  some  of  her 
studies^ 

Biologically,  then,  spending  stands  for  ihe 
47 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

process  assimilation.  It  is  the  "  nutritive  " 
process  of  life  because  it  is  the  source  of 
the  supply  for  life's  essentials.  Spending 
is  the  province  of  woman.  She  can  be 
sure  of  the  vital  physical  needs,  of  those 
things  essential  to  the  best  development  of 
life,  however  her  methods  may  differ  from 
her  neighbor's.  The  results  will  be  the 
same,  for  health  is  health.  When  a  woman 
spends  her  money  on  what  she  considers 
physical  needs,  and  sickness  is  the  result, 
if  she  thinks  at  all  she  seeks  the  reason. 

All  this  does  not  sound  like  economic 
function,  and  yet  it  is.  We  hear  a  great 
deal  about  supplying  the  demand  in  all 
departments  of  life ;  the  phrase  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  industrial  world.  The  econ- 
omist says,  "  The  consumption  of  wealth 
indicates  the  line  of  production."  The 
supply  is  dependent  upon  the  demand. 
Women  think  of  themselves  as  buyers,  not 
as  demanders.  The  supply  seems  to  be 
fixed  in  character  at  least,  and  they  buy 
what  is  offered  to  them.  But  the  de- 
mander  not  only  creates  the  supply,  he  is 
responsible  for  the  character  of  the  sup- 

48 


Vital  Needs 

ply  also.  The  spending  woman  will  not 
have  the  best  supply  until  she  understands 
how  to  make  the  best  demand.  This  is  a 
woman's  true  economic  function :  not  merely 
to  demand,  but  to  demand  wisely  and  in- 
telligently. She  cannot  do  this  and  remain 
ignorant  of  or  indifferent  to  the  vital  phys- 
ical needs,  and  of  their  importance  over  the 
secondary  wishes,  the  non-essentials  of  life. 
It  will  not  be  possible  to  satisfy  all  wants. 
That  quaint  philosopher  in  "  The  Spenders," 
Peter  Bines,  says,  "  The  mis-a-b'lest  folks  I 
ever  saw  was  them  that  killed  all  their 
wants  by  over-feedin'  them."1  It  is  good 
to  have  wants  and  wishes,  but  we  are  not 
getting  our  money's  worth  when  these  alone 
create  the  demand  for  production.  Ideals 
must  come  at  last  into  the  economic  world, 
and  women,  as  spenders,  must  have  ideals. 
To  many  women,  being  "  economical  "  means 
getting  the  most  for  as  little  money  as  pos- 
sible, regardless  of  the  character  or  efficiency 
of  the  goods.  Such  an  ideal  does  not  hold 
in  any  other  side  of  life.  The  best  moral, 
spiritual,  or  intellectual  results  depend  upon 

1 "  The  Spenders,"  by  Harry  Leon  Wilson. 
49 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

the  best  effort.  We  do  not  expect  great 
results  from  ignorant,  desultory  methods. 
We  should  not  expect  them  in  the  spend- 
ing world.  The  problem  is  not  solved  by 
merely  living  within  your  means,  merely 
keeping  out  of  debt.  That  is  a  compara- 
tively easy  thing  to  do.  Life  must  be  lived 
in  proper  adjustment  to  the  income ;  that 
is,  spending  for  the  physical,  as  well  as  for 
the  intellectual  and  moral,  needs  of  life 
must  be  in  proportion  to  the  whole  one 
has  to  spend. 

To  work  out  a  scheme  for  oneself  in 
which  the  amount  one  has  to  spend  is 
divided  between  the  vital  needs,  the  wants, 
and  desires  in  such  a  way  as  to  give  the 
best  and  most  satisfactory  results  —  this 
seems  an  ideal  worth  putting  forth  effort 
to  attain.  What  we  think  we  need  we  work 
hard  to  obtain,  and  often  we  find  we  have 
much  that  we  do  not  need  or. even  want. 
Dissatisfaction  comes  not  so  much  from  a 
lack  of  income  as  from  the  misuse  of  in- 
come. The  woman  who  longs  to  get  where 
she  "  won't  have  to  count  every  penny  "  will 
never  have  her  longing  satisfied  until  she 

50 


Vital  Needs 

first  makes  every  penny  count.  The  burden 
of  life  is  not  lifted  when  every  desire  is 
gratified,  but  when  the  needs  of  life  are 
satisfied  to  the  best  possible  advantage. 

In  our  discussion,  vital  needs  have  been 
confined  to  the  physical  needs  of  life,  be- 

I  cause  those  are  universal  in  their  demand 
and  because  this  is  universally  recognized. 
Women  will  spend  for  these  needs  whether 
they  recognize  any  higher  needs  or  not  To 
recognize  the  demands  of  the  physical  life, 
and  to  be  able  intelligently  to  supply  these 
needs,  is  but  the  beginning  of  a  better  real- 
ization of  other  needs.  Wise  spending  for 
physical  things  will  be,  as  it  were,  a  train- 
ing in  spending  for  the  highest  needs  of 
the  intellectual  and  spiritual  life.  It  will 
develop  qualities  which  are  necessary  in  all 
sides  of  life.  The  ability  to  grasp  essential 
facts,  to  see  them  in  relation  to  one's  life, 
to  give  thought,  study,  purpose,  and  under- 
standing to  any  problem,  is  to  gain  the 
highest  and  best  in  return.  The  supply  is 
determined  by  the  demand. 


IMITATION   VERSUS 
INDEPENDENCE 


When  a  nation  devotes  a  large  amount  of  its  labor  and  capi- 
tal to  the  production  of  commodities  which  in  their  consump- 
tion cause  more  misery  than  happiness  and  weaken  the  nation's 
future  resources  of  energy  and  intelligence,  there  is  a  departure 
from  economical  consumption  so  serious  as  to  call  for  the 
severest  condemnation.  If  society  would  forego  such  injurious 
consumption  bread  would  be  cheaper,  higher  wants  would  find 
satisfaction,  and  man  would  be  working  away  from  the  beast's 
low  level  of  sensual  gratification. 

Ely  and  Wicker,  pp.  108-109. 


54 


CHAPTER   III 

IMITATION    VERSUS    INDEPENDENCE 

IMITATION,  in  its  biological  sense,  is  a 
*  means  of  development  which  is  protective 
in  purpose.  Imitation  of  color,  form,  habit, 
and  environment  in  the  biological  world  is 
always  for  the  preservation  of  the  life  of 
the  imitator,  and  therefore  aids  its  chance 
of  development.  This  is  the  biological  limit 
of  the  process.  If  imitation  became  a  men- 
ace to  the  best  growth  of  an  organism, 
Nature  would  quickly  drop  it  from  her 
book  of  life.  Independence,  likewise,  in  its 
biological  sense,  is  a  means  of  development, 
because  the  independent  organism,  while  it 
draws  strength,  beauty,  and  life  from  its 
environment,  still  contains  in  its  own  roots 
or  being  the  essential  life  requirements,  and 
in  using  its  own  power  to  the  utmost  adds 
to  the  strength  of  its  life.  A  parasite  is  a 
low,  dependent  form  of  life,  but  it  is  not 
imitative ;  it  never  becomes  like  the  life  that 
feeds  it.  Independence  does  not  exclude 

55 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

imitation.  Imitation  does  not  destroy  the 
independence  of  the  organism.  These  two 
/  processes  of  life  development  are  not  op- 
posing forces,  but  forces  of  which  the  true 
combination  makes  a  mighty  weapon  in 
the  struggle  for  life.  If  imitation  destroyed 
independence,  or  independence  scorned  the 
aid  of  imitation,  organic  life  would  lose 
much  of  that  variety  which  is  its  strength. 
In  the  life  of  the  world  today  these  two 
processes  seem  opposed,  and  in  their  oppo- 
sition they  are  deteriorating  and  losing  the 
strength  both  have  to  give.  In  the  spend- 
ing world  the  value  of  imitation  has  become 
strangely  distorted,  and  independence  has  an 
unhealthy  sound.  The  American  woman  is 
independent.  It  is  usually  the  first  thing 
mentioned  in  the  long  list  of  her  character- 
istics. She  is  not  bound  by  precedents, 
except  of  her  own  making.  She  can  think, 
do,  or  say  almost  anything  a  man  can,  and 
a  good  many  things  he  cannot  or  will  not. 
It  is  her  greatest  source  of  power,  and 
makes  her  helpful,  earnest,  energetic  in 
things  of  moment  today.  From  all  coun- 
tries of  the  earth  the  eyes  of  women  turn 

56 


Imitation  Versus  Independence 

to  this  country  where  women  are  free,  in- 
dependent. Dark  Oriental  eyes,  tragic  in 
their  longing;  sullen  eyes,  in  whose  depths 
lie  generations  of  submission  to  the  decree 
of  fate ;  hopeless  eyes,  which  tell  of  physical 
suffering,  so  long  a  burden;  patient  eyes, 
without  a  gleam  of  hope  for  a  possible 
change,  meet  the  American  woman  as  she 
travels  round  the  world.  Thankfulness  that 
she  is  not  as  they  are  is  one  of  the  constant 
sensations  of  her  journeyings. 

Independent  —  "  to  be  free,  unrestrained  " ; 
yes,  women  are  independent.  But  that  they 
are  independent  in  the  truest  sense  of  the 
word,  able  to  draw  from  the  life  around 
them  all  that  aids  in  the  development  of  a 
greater  freedom,  leaving  all  that  is  unfit  to 
die  of  its  own  littleness,  that  will  have  to 
be  proved,  j  As  opposed  to  the  downtrodden, 
abused,  degraded  life  of  the  women  of  the 
far  East,  the  life  of  the  woman  of  America 
is  independent.  But  whether  it  is  so  with 
relation  to  that  of  the  woman  just  across 
the  street  or  on  the  floor  above,  one  doubts, 
because  one  sees  in  the  life  of  any  com- 
munity the  repetition  of  habits,  customs, 

57 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

and  possessions  which  are  clearly  barriers 
in  the  line  of  progress  of  a  better  living 
of  life.  Now  independence,  like  most  other 
things,  ought  to  begin  at  home  if  it  is  to 
be  of  any  real  value  to  the  world  at  large. 
But  we  must  define  the  word  before  we  can 
discuss  it.  Independence  is  as  difficult  to 
define  as  need  or  simple.  Independence, 
like  reason,  "  is  a  weapon  in  the  struggle 
for  existence,  and  a  means  of  achieving 
adaptation." 

With  the  mention  of  adaptation  we  come 
to  the  consideration  that  it  demands,  of  the 
necessity  of  weighing  influences.  Is  the 
woman  spender  subject  to  bias  and  influ- 
ence, or  not?  If  she  is,  what  are  the  in- 
fluences, and  how  far  are  they  helping  her 
to  the  independence  she  needs  for  perfect 
adaptation  ? 

We  may  as  well  begin  with  the  influence 
women  feel  most  keenly  and  admit  so  sel- 
dom, man's  influence.  Men  do  influence 
women  in  their  spending.  This  discussion 
is  not  of  his  right  to  influence  the  woman 
who  spends  his  money,  but  of  the  effect, 
good  or  bad,  which  his  influence  may  have 

58 


Imitation  Versus  Independence 

upon  the  woman.  It  is  but  natural  that 
a  woman  should  desire  to  please  the 
man  whose  income  she  spends.  Yet  this 
influence  is  more  or  less  general  and  in- 
direct in  its  power.  Women  are  given  so 
much  freedom  in  spending,  and  men  are 
so  inclined  to  give  the  whole  burden,  at 
least  of  household  expenditure,  into  the 
woman's  hands  that  the  man's  influence  is 
but  spasmodically  felt  when  the  purchase 
is  something  important,  like  a  new  rug 
for  the  house,  or  Tommy's  winter  overcoat. 
The  man's  influence  is  often  good,  and  it 
gives  the  woman  more  independence  in  her 
spending  because  she  feels  the  value  of  his 
larger  experience  in  the  buying  world.  Not 
that  he  buys  more,  but  he  usually  knows 
more  about  the  production  of  goods  offered 
to  buyers.  He  prides  himself  upon  know- 
ing a  good  thing  when  he  sees  it,  and  his 
influence  could  be  of  the  greatest  aid  if  he 
considered  the  results  worth  the  time  he 
would  have  to  give.  But  the  average  man 
does  not  wish  to  be  bothered  with  such 
details  of  living,  and  often  his  extreme  con- 
fidence in  the  woman  is  the  result  of  in- 

59 


ft* 

*•• 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

difference,  rather  than  the  indication  of  a 
recognized  basis  for  such  confidence. 

Many  men  are  of  no  help  whatever  in 
a  woman's  spending.  Their  standards  are 
shallow  and  blind,  and  their  influence  is 
to  push  women  farther  and  farther  from 
the  independence  which  they  need.  Their 
pride,  perhaps,  urges  extravagance  and  dis- 
play. The  spirit  of  competition  enters  even 
into  homes,  and  fosters  the  desire  to  be  a 
little  better  than  one's  neighbors,  at  least 
in  outward  appearance. 

But  a  woman's  husband,  or  father,  or 
brother  is  by  no  means  the  only  man  who 
has  power  to  influence  her  spending.  The 
influence  which  can  be  profitably  studied, 
because  it  is  daily,  almost  hourly,  felt,  is 
the  influence  of  the  man  behind  the  counter. 
The  remarkable  variety  of  things  this  man 
is  supposed  to  know,  judging  by  the  ques- 
tions he  is  asked  by  the  shopper,  would  fill 
a  library  of  universal  knowledge.  To  prove 
this,  all  one  has  to  do  is  to  visit  his  counter 
and  listen.  Women  refer  to  the  shopkeeper 
or  clerk,  for  their  judgment  and  approval, 
some  of  the  most  important  interests  in  life. 

60 


Imitation  Versus  Independence 

The  training  the  average  woman  receives  in 
economics  is  gathered  from  these  sources. 
Her  ideas  of  value,  cost,  price,  the  forming 
of  her  economic  demand,  the  apcepting  of 
the  supply,  all  begin  and  end  with  the 
counter.  There  she  is  taught  to  save,  by 
reduced  sales  and  bargains.  There  her 
money  is  apportioned  out  for  her,  and  econ- 
omy becomes  a  problem  of  making  a  little 
go  as  far  as  possible,  too  often  without  re- 
gard to  the  quality  of  the  goods  obtained. 

Her  biological  interests,  which  should 
center  in  drawing  from  the  world  of  goods 
the  proper  service  which  a  healthy  life  and 
right  environment  demand,  receive  their 
strongest,  if  unconscious,  influence  from 
the  shop. 

In  the  spring,  the  woman's  question  to 
the  clerk  of  whom  she  buys  is,  "  Will  it 
wash  ? "  The  supposed  graduate  from  a 
school  of  laundry  answers,  "  Perfectly, 
madam,  perfectly,  these  are  all  fast  colors." 
He  may  have  sold  boots  and  shoes  only  ten 
days  before,  but  the  woman  does  not  think 
of  that.  He  is  behind  a  linen  counter, 
therefore  he  knows  whether  the  goods  will 

61 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

fade  or  shrink ;  he  knows  whether  the  table- 
cloth will  retain  that  nice,  attractive,  shiny 
look  which  makes  it  such  a  bargain  on  the 
counter,  such  a  rag  when  it  is  washed. 
Women  put  a  premium  on  the  salesman's 
lying.  He  is  paid  to  agree  with  them ;  it  is 
his  business.  Another  question  asked  con- 
stantly is,  "  How  many  yards  do  I  need  ? " 
The  inevitable  answer,  "  We  are  selling  from 
twelve  to  fourteen  yards,  madam;  it  would 
be  safer  to  take  fourteen,"  is  the  influence 
which  usually  determines  the  quantity  pur- 
chased. Your  own  dimensions,  the  style 
in  which  the  goods  is  to  be  made,  seem  to 
have  little  weight  before  that  answer.  The 
man,  who  does  not  know  a  ruffle  from  a 
tuck,  or  a  five-gored  skirt  from  an  all-over 
shirred  creation,  smilingly  tells  us  the  amount 
needed,  and  we  buy  accordingly.  There 
may  be  dressmaking  classes  for  these  sales- 
men, but  if  so  the  fact  has  not  yet  been 
made  public. 

Thus,  in  many  ways,  this  strong  influence 
is  felt  by  the  woman  spender.  The  shops 
depend  upon  their  clerks  to  sell  as  many 
articles  as  possible  and  as  much  of  any 

62 


Imitation  Versus  Independence 

given  article  as  they  possibly  can.  Every- 
where women  meet  the  bribe  to  spend  a 
little  more.  It  is  not  in  any  sense  limited, 
but  extends  from  dress  goods  to  groceries, 
from  furniture  to  eyeglasses.  The  remnants 
which  contain  more  yards  than  are  needed, 
but  at  a  price  such  that  "  you  are  really 
getting  two  yards  for  nothing,"  few  women 
can  resist. 

Another  strong  influence,  which  must  be 
very  effective  if  its  great  prevalence  signi- 
fies anything,  is  advertising.  No  one  ever 
finds  this  given  as  one  of  the  departments 
of  psychology,  but  it  is  a  practical  illustra- 
tion of  a  great  psychic  law  which  is  playing 
such  an  important  part  today  in  thought, 
the  law  of  suggestion.  The  energetic  ad- 
vertising manager  may  not  know  that  such 
a  law  exists,  but  he  obeys  it  nevertheless. 
Not  long  ago,  at  a  banquet  of  some  of 
the  leading  textile  manufacturers  of  New 
England,  a  speaker,  whose  subject  was 
advertising,  said :  "  In  the  first  place,  psy- 
chologically considered,  it  is  necessary  to 
understand  woman  because  she  does  ninety 
per  cent  of  the  buying.  The  way  to  reach 

63 


w 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

the  woman  is  through  the  daily  newspaper 
and  the  magazines."  Just  about  one-half 
of  our  magazines  today  are  filled  up  with 
advertisements,  and  two-thirds  of  these  are 
for  women's  wares.  This  is  natural  because 
women  have  more  leisure  to  read  and  are 
more  open  to  suggestion  because  of  this 
very  leisure.  The  cheaper  the  magazine, 
the  more  advertisements  there  are  for 
women.  This  influence  has  its  legitimate 
place  in  the  business  world,  for  it  is  through 
the  acceptance  of  suggestions  and  the  wise 
adaptation  of  them  that  the  world  pro- 
gresses along  both  these  lines.  But  the  law 
of  suggestion  acts  upon  the  mind,  whether 
it  be  wise  or  unwise,  empty  of  knowledge 
or  full  of  understanding.  In  this  lies  the 
danger.  No  one  cares  or  dares  to  contem- 
plate the  number  of  things  women  buy  as 
the  result  of  a  suggestive  advertisement, 
which  are  of  no  use  to  them  in  any  way, 
because  the  suggestion  received  found  no 
background  of  knowledge  against  which  to 
measure  worth.  The  independent  woman 
is  sensitive  to  suggestion,  but  the  sugges- 


64 


Imitation  Versus  Independence 

tion  received  must  submit  to  the  test  of 
her  life's  demands. 

Stronger  than  printing,  because  more 
convincing  than  a  picture,  is  the  influence 
of  the  shop  window.  There  one  sees  the 
marvelous  combination  of  bed,  bookcase, 
dressing  table,  and  hatrack  actually  worked 
by  an  attendant  who  moves  too  rapidly  for 
you  to  grasp  the  mechanism,  but  conviction 
follows.  There  one  gazes  into  parlors,  bed- 
rooms, bathrooms,  kitchens,  and  many  sug- 
gestions are  received  and  acted  upon  which 
are  useful  and  helpful,  many  which  are 
not.  In  these  windows  women  see  them- 
selves as  they  resolve  others  shall  see 
them,  and  to  some  it  is  a  lesson  well 
learned;  to  others  it  brings  a  wrong  dis- 
content. Sooner  or  later  women  learn  the 
truth  of  old  Peter  Bines's  philosophy :  "  In 
this  world  of  human  failin's  there  ain't  any- 
thing ever  can  be  as  pure  and  blameless 
and  satisfying  as  the  stuff  in  a  bakeshop 
window  looks  like  it  is.  It's  just  too  good 
to  be  true." 

Nevertheless  all  these  influences  will  re- 
main, and  will  be  good  or  bad  according 

65 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

to  the  place  they  will  have  in  building  up 
a  woman's  independence  or  in  tearing  it 
down.  To  gain  independence,  knowledge  is 
required.  Let  women  read  up  on  fibers  as 
well  as  on  sixteenth  century  china.  How 
to  know  a  well-woven,  properly  dyed  piece 
of  goods  may  be  of  more  value  at  times 
than  "  How  to  know  the  wild  flowers." 
The  study  of  the  process  is  as  interesting 
as  the  methods  of  Persian  rug  making,  and 
nearer  home.  No  one  would  underestimate 
the  aesthetic  or  intellectual  enjoyment  of 
knowing  many  interesting  things  which  may 
be  far  removed  from  one's  own  life.  But 
more  emphasis  must  be  put  upon  the  great 
value  of  an  intelligent  understanding  of 
simple,  practical,  everyday  matters  for  which 
we  spend  time,  effort,  and  money,  often  with 
poor  results.  We  try  to  provide  for  life 
without  knowing  its  needs.  We  make  our 
physical  development  hard  instead  of  easy 
because  we  do  not  know  the  strength  or 
purpose  of  its  demands.  Our  environment 
is  a  burden  to  be  borne  instead  of  a  source 
of  vital  power  to  be  enjoyed.  An  independ- 
ent organism  in  Nature's  world  draws  from 

66 


Imitation  Versus  Independence 

its  environment  everything  that  strengthens 
its  independent  sturdiness,  and  casts  off  all 
that  would  cripple  its  development. 

This  does  not  mean  isolation  from  its 
fellows,  for  some  of  the  most  independent 
organisms  live  in  large  societies.  From  its 
strength  and  independence,  from  the  depth 
and  ramification  of  its  roots,  perhaps  from 
the  shade  of  its  branches,  life  is  given  to 
hundreds  of  other  organisms  in  their  de- 
velopment. A  knowledge  of  ourselves  does 
not  separate,  but  binds  us  to  our  fellow 
beings.  We  like  to  think  of  ourselves  as 
very  special  individuals  who  require,  each 
one  of  us,  our  own  special  environment. 
We  turn  to  Nature  and  find  most  beauti- 
ful parallels.  I  heard  a  woman  address  a 
Mothers'  Club  on  this  subject  very  im- 
pressively. She  said:  "Our  children  are 
like  the  little  flowers  in  our  gardens.  Each 
little  plant  has  its  own  needs,  and  Mother 
Nature  is  a  wise  gardener  who  knows  and 
supplies  all.  So  we  as  mothers  must  under- 
stand each  child's  needs."  It  was  true  and 
the  speaker  meant  every  word  of  it,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  she  herself  supplied  the 

67 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

needs  of  her  own  little  "  plants "  by  con- 
stantly scrutinizing  her  neighbor's  garden. 
This  brings  us  to  the  subject  of  imitation, 
to  the  question  of  its  purpose  in  life.  How 
far  is  it  safe  to  scrutinize  our  neighbor's 
garden  ? 

Independence  based  upon  knowledge  of 
individual  needs  leads  to  variation.  Pro- 
fessor Senior  tells  us  that  man's  "first  de- 
sire is  to  vary  his  food;  the  next  desire  is 
variety  of  dress;  last  comes  the  desire  to 
build,  to  ornament,  and  to  furnish."  Some 
mistaken  people  in  the  world  are  inclined 
to  put  these  three  primary  objects  at  the 
beginning  of  man's  upward  climb,  to  con- 
sider them  as  past  stages  in  his  develop- 
ment. But  just  a  glance  into  the  world 
shows  us  these  objects  stronger  than  ever 
before  and  increasing  all  the  time.  They 
are  the  cause  of  our  wide  field  of  choice 
today;  of  our  many  needs,  many  pleasures; 
of  more  specialization  in  our  work,  and 
better  adaptation  in  our  results.  Just  a 
small  collection  of  menu  cards  gives  a  con- 
vincing illustration  of  the  intensity  of  the 
desire  to  "vary  his  food."  From  the  big 

68 


Imitation  Versus  Independence 

hotel  to  the  tenement  this  desire  prevails. 
As  for  "variety  of  dress,"  there  is  a  story 
told  about  one  of  our  leading  universities 
which  asserts  that  in  that  institution  the 
professors'  wives  have  new  dinner  gowns 
every  sabbatical  year,  and  only  then.  It  is 
to  be  feared,  however,  that  such  disregard 
of  fashion,  such  lack  of  desire  for  variety, 
is  forced  upon  these  gentlewomen  by  the 
size  of  the  professors'  salaries.  It  does  not 
necessarily  signify  independence  of  mind. 
No,  our  clothes  are  among  the  shortest- 
lived  of  our  possessions.  Professors'  wives 
are  hopelessly  in  the  minority.  We  look 
to  past  centuries  and  a  certain  style  of  dress 
covered  a  long  period,  sometimes  fifty  or  a 
hundred  years.  Now  a  style  manages  to 
exist  about  six  weeks,  sometimes  longer  if 
it  is  particularly  attractive.  Variety  in  style 
means  variety  in  dress.  One  needs  more 
gowns  at  a  time  and  more  frequent  change 
of  dress  as  new  styles  are  constantly  intro- 
duced. Ornaments,  buildings,  and  furnish- 
ings have  more  lasting  styles,  but  still  not 
in  proportion  to  the  time  and  money  spent 
in  securing  them. 

69 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

In  the  biological  world,  variation  is  an 
important  process  in  life  development,  gov- 
erned by  certain  laws,  the  fulfilling  of  which 
brings  progress  in  all  life,  the  abusing  or  dis- 
torting of  which  means  backward  steps,  even 
death.  In  the  practical  spending  world  we 
recognize  the  process  of  variation.  The 
question  is,  How  far  is  it  of  service  in  our 
industrial  and  social  development?  Varia- 
tion has  its  place  in  the  economic  world. 
The  value  of  imitation  is  also  recognized 
in  the  economic  world.  By  imitation,  it  is 
possible  to  make  many  things  of  exact  shape 
and  size,  where  years  ago  there  could  be 
but  few  produced,  and  consequently  but  few 
possessed.  Imitation  has  brought  cheap- 
ness and  larger  quantities,  thereby  making  a 
larger  distribution  possible.  But  too  much 
imitation  will  result  in  poor  variation,  and 
poor  variation  weakens  the  independent  life 
of  individual  and  community. 

In  the  "  Letters  of  a  Chinese  Official,"  we 
find  this  criticism  of  our  poor  variation : 
"  Look  at  your  streets !  Row  upon  row  of 
little  boxes,  one  like  another,  lacking  in  all 
that  is  essential,  loaded  with  all  that  is 

70 


Imitation  Versus  Independence 

superfluous."  We  resent  this  very  much, 
because  no  one  expects  a  Chinaman  to  dic- 
tate to  us,  or  to  understand  American  needs 
and  environment.  At  the  same  time  we 
recognize  a  certain  truth  in  the  statement. 
There  seems  to  be  a  great  deal  of  imitation 
in  our  environment,  and  much  that  seems 
destructive.  For  the  latter,  we  must  fix  the 
blame.  As  long  as  the  American  woman 
allows  the  shops  to  choose  what  she  shall 
wear  and  what  she  shall  put  into  her  house, 
and  permits  her  neighbors  to  dictate  her 
food  and  habits  of  life,  there  will  be  no 
healthy  progress  in  wise  spending.  Some 
one  has  said  that  man  only  is  tending  to 
uniformity,  to  the  brick  machine  type,  not 
because  of  grinding  poverty,  but  because  he 
is  lazy.  I  hope  this  applies  to  men  only. 
How  can  one  tell  women  that  they  are  all 
little  bricks,  no  matter  how  fine  the  bricks> 
and  that  it  is  because  they  are  lazy!  No, 
far  better  say  they  are  all  peacocks,  and 
spend  their  time  and  money  busily  match- 
ing colors.  The  imitation  is  often  not  posi- 
tively bad,  but  many  times  negatively  good 
because  it  takes  time,  energy,  and  money 


1      <-       k    f  Vt~t    ; 

'(<— 

;;^;': 

0^v  7%*  Woman  Who  Spends 

which  could  produce  positive  good.  Thus 
it  is  a  social,  economic,  and  biological  waste. 
The  desire  to  vary  and  imitate  becomes 
more  or  less  of  an  ethical  question,  a  ques- 
tion of  how  much  variety  we  are  justified  in 
striving  for  and  how  much  imitation  ought 
to  be  followed  by  thoughtful  spenders.  It 
is  so  easy  to  point  out  to  others  their  faults 
along  this  line.  It  is  far  easier  to  feel  sure 
that  we  are  independent,  whatever  others 
may  be.  But  if  we  are  honest,  we  cannot 
fail  to  see  the  weak  spots  in  ourselves.  So 
much  of  our  imitation  is  without  rhyme  or 
reason.  It  begins  with  the  schoolgirl  who 
is  unhappy  unless  her  hair  ribbon  is  just 
as  big  and  floppy  as  the  "  other  girls',"  no 
matter  how  unbecoming  it  may  be  to  her. 
To  so  many  of  your  most  reasonable  and 
sensible  ideas  for  her  she  has  but  one 
answer,  "  Oh,  none  of  the  girls  do  that, 
Mother."  You  give  in,  reluctantly  to  be 
sure,  because  she  is  so  young  and  sweet, 
with  her  enthusiasm  and  her  shining  eyes. 
But  ten  years  later,  that  habit  may  result 
in  the  harsh  criticism,  "  She  has  no  ideas 
of  her  own;  a  woman  of  little  force." 

72 


Imitation  Versus  Independence 

But  all  imitation  is  not  ridiculous  or  waste 
of  time.  There  is  an  imitation  that  is  a 
protection.  This  is  not  only  common  sense 
but  biological  fact.  It  is  a  law  applied  by 
Nature  constantly  in  the  life  of  animals 
and  plants.  A  certain  harmless  species  of| 
butterflies  imitate  the  color  and  markings 
of  the  poisonous  ones  of  another  genus, 
and  thus  escape  a  hungry  bird.  This  is 
advantageous,  protective  imitation,  and  such 
imitation  has  a  big  place  in  the  woman's 
spending  world.  It  is  not  always  an  indi- 
vidual consideration.  Often  the  advance- 
ment of  the  whole  social  group  is  gained 
by  a  sympathetic  imitation.  It  enables  men 
to  move  forward  together,  where  a  lack  of 
imitation  would  dissipate  their  energies  and 
delay  their  progress.  No  one  can  stop  such 
imitation  in  the  spending  world,  and  no  one 
cares  to  do  so  if  women  will  realize  the 
importance  of  it.  But  the  social  aspect  of 
it  must  not  be  overlooked,  the  inevitable 
fact  that  the  demands  of  the  individual  de- 
termine the  demands  of  the  social  group, 
just  as  in  the  life  of  a  plant  or  animal 
group  the  strength  lies  not  only  in  numbers, 

73 


Woman  Who  Spends 

but  in  a  sympathetic  regulation  of  the  life 
as  a  whole. 

To  possess  things  worth  imitating  is  the 
office  of  the  woman  of  taste.  It  is  part  of 
her  economic  function.  Every  woman  who 
contributes  better  standards  of  dress,  food, 
home,  and  habits  for  others  to  imitate  is 
adding  to  the  economic  prosperity  of  the 
nation,  to  say  nothing  of  health  and  happi- 
ness. If  your  neighbor's  house  is  sanitary, 
if  her  food  is  pure,  if  her  spending  seems 
to  have  the  best  results,  copy,  woman 
spender,  your  neighbor's  methods !  That 
is  positive  protective  imitation  because  it 
will  add  strength  to  your  own  individual 
development.  It  is  also  a  sympathetic  imi- 
tation which  will  move  the  whole  com- 
munity a  step  farther  along  the  way  of 
progress. 

But  woman  too  often  imitates  destruc- 
tively, and  what  she  destroys  is  her  own 
peace  of  mind  and  joy  in  living,  and  she 
also  puts  a  barrier  in  the  path  of  the 
community.  Father  Duncan,  who  has  been 
forty-seven  years  among  the  Indians  in  our 
Alaskan  possessions,  has  always  tried  to 

74 


Imitation  Versus  Independence 

keep  them  away  from  the  influence  of  the 
white  man,  because,  he  says,  the  Indian  is 
only  a  little  child  who  takes  the  thing  with- 
out the  reason.  As  long  as  the  Indian 
lived  in  his  shack  or  wigwam,  with  his  fire 
in  the  middle  and  a  hole  at  the  top,  his 
home  had  good  ventilation  and  the  Indian 
had  good  lungs.  When  he  imitates  the 
white  man's  house,  he  copies  the  windows 
for  light  only.  This  results  in  no  ventila- 
tion, and  the  Indian  gets  consumption. 
This  is  destructive  imitation  from  a  lack  of 
independence  which  requires  knowledge. 

Purposeless  imitation !  You  see  it  every- 
where. Buy  a  thing  because  some  one  else 
has  bought  one  like  it.  The  shops  imitate 
each  other  and  dictate  to  the  woman  just 
the  line  of  imitation  she  shall  follow,  with- 
out a  thought  for  her  needs.  The  Fourth 
Avenue  shop  says  to  the  Fourth  Avenue 
buyer :  "  Behold  my  clever  imitation.  For 
less  than  you  could  pay  in  a  Fifth  Avenue 
shop,  I  can  give  you  a  perfect  imitation. 
You  would  not  be  behind  the  styles,  I  know. 
I  can  make  you  look  like  the  real  peacock, 
so  buy  here."  The  Third  Avenue  shop 

75 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

scans  the  windows  of  the  Fourth  Avenue 
shop  and  returns  to  say  the  same  to  its 
customers.  The  First  Avenue  shop  has  a 
still  cheaper  imitation,  and  in  Hester  Street, 
on  the  pushcarts,  ghosts  of  the  real  are 
"  Going,  going,  going  "  for  thirty-nine  cents. 
Some  argue,  Why  not  ?  All  cannot  have 
the  real.  Are  they  to  be  cut  off  from  all 
the  beauty  of  form  and  color  just  because 
they  cannot  afford  to  pay  high  prices? 
Surely  not.  No  one  would  object  to  the 
imitation  if  it  accomplished  that  purpose. 
But  to  possess  the  clever  imitation  of  a 
worthless  thing,  women  sometimes  miss  the 
essential.  We  are  out  of  patience  with  the 
woman  who  covers  her  walls  with  life-size 
crayon  portraits  of  all  her  family,  when  to 
do  it  she  is  forced  to  go  without  necessities. 
Poor,  ignorant  thing,  we  say,  what  can  you 
expect?  To  the  poor  who  have  no  money 
and  who  have  no  business  trying  to  look  as 
if  they  had;  to  those  who  have  little  and 
try  to  look  as  if  they  had  more,  we  teach 
morals  and  standards.  But  for  those  of  us 
who  have  plenty  and  who  spend  our  lives 
trying  to  imitate  those  who  have  too  much, 

76 


Imitation  Versus  Independence 

there  are  always  excuses.  "  Would  you  have 
me  conspicuously  out  of  style  ?  "  "  What 
can  we  do,  when  the  shops  offer  us  nothing 
else?"  Learn  of  Nature,  woman  spender, 
and  she  will  teach  you  to  match  your  en- 
vironment. She  will  teach  you  to  struggle 
for  and  to  imitate  those  things  which  make 
for  life,  the  highest  life,  the  best  life,  not  for 
yourself  alone,  but  for  all  to  whom  you  are 
bound  by  the  common  ties  of  life.  Pea- 
cocks strutting  the  green  velvet  lawns  of 
Warwick  Castle  are  a  delight  to  your  eyes. 
Peacocks  dragging  their  gorgeous  plumage 
in  the  mud  of  Cheapside  are  a  sorry  sight. 

Did  you  ever  go  down  to  one  of  our  city 
settlements  full  of  the  desire  to  help  and  lift 
up  the  poor  shop  girl  ?  Do  you  remember 
the  chill  that  came  over  you  when  the  head 
worker  introduced  you  to  the  "girls  of  our 
Ivy  Club  ?  "  There  must  be  some  mistake, 
you  thought.  These  could  not  be  poor 
girls,  earning  five  or  six  dollars  a  week. 
They  looked  better  dressed  than  you  did! 
Plumes  on  their  hats,  a  rustle  of  silk  petti- 
coats, everything  about  them  in  the  latest 
style.  You  went  home  thoughtful  about 

77 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

those  girls  who  wasted  their  hard-earned 
money  on  cheap  imitation,  who  dressed  be- 
yond their  station,  and  you  failed  to  see 
what  enjoyment  they  got  out  of  it.  In  time 
you  learned  that  it  was  only  an  attempt  "  to 
bridge  the  difference  "  between  themselves 
and  those  with  larger  opportunities  by  imi- 
tating all  they  could  see. 

What  then  shall  we  say  is  true  or  real 
independence?  Its  social  significance  is 
certainly  clear.  We  cannot  live  or  spend 
to  please  ourselves  alone.  We  must  draw 
from  life  the  best  that  it  holds  for  ourselves, 
only  to  give  it  back  to  others  the  richer  for 
our  having  used  it.  •  We  cannot  separate 
our  independence  from  the  independence  of 
the  whole.  It  requires  powers  of  discrimi- 
nation to  live  and  spend  independently  with- 
out revolution.  Socially,  true  independence 
of  the  individual  brings  unity  to  the  whole. 
It  has  ever  two  aims  —  the  highest  life,  phys- 
ical, mental,  and  moral  for  the  individual, 
and  the  best  development  of  all  for  the 
group,  and  these  can  never  be  separated. 
As  Jane  Addams,  of  Hull  House,  in  "  De- 
mocracy and  Social  Ethics "  so  truly  said, 

78 


Imitation  Versus  Independence 

"  We  slowly  learn  that  life  consists  of  proc- 
esses as  well  as  results,  and  that  failure  may 
come  quite  as  easily  from  ignoring  the  ade- 
quacy of  one's  method  as  from  selfish  or 
ignoble  aims."  To  gain  this  real  independ- 
ence and  true  power  of  imitation,  our 
methods  must  not  lie  in  theory  alone,  how- 
ever logical  it  might  seem,  however  ethical 
its  concepts,  however  economically  prosper- 
ous the  carrying  out  of  such  a  theory  ought 
to  make  individuals  or  nations.  Methods 
must  stand  the  test  of  practice.  It  is  then 
that  our  theories  become  not  alone  crea- 
tions of  the  mind,  but  habits  of  life.  It  is 
through  practice  that  we  progress.  When 
independence  becomes  vital,  it  will  give  us 
the  strength  to  stand  alone ;  when  imitation 
becomes  helpful,  it  will  enlarge  our  sym- 
pathy  rather  than  our  vanity.  We  will 
have  proved  by  experiment  the  value  of 
our  theories. 


79 


CHOICE 


Consumption  furnishes  the  motive  to  production. 

Ely  and  Wicker,  p.  83. 

Luxury  and  harmful  consumption  both  violate  the  rule  of 
right  choices.  Inclusive,  harmonious,  and  varied  consumption 
is  most  economical.  Ely  and  Wicker,  p.  in. 

It  is  the  present  duty  of  the  economist  to  magnify  the  office 
of  the  wealth  expender.  .  .  .  There  is  no  economic  function 
higher  than  that  of  determining  how  wealth  shall  be  used.  .  .  . 
More  discriminating  choice  necessitates  more  discriminating 
production. 

"  The  Economic  Function  of  Woman"    Edward  T.  Devine. 


82 


CHAPTER   IV 

CHOICE 

IT  is  only  a  lazy  mind  that  would  shirk 
the  responsibility  of  choosing.  Of  all 
the  acts  of  the  will,  there  is  none  more 
important  in  its  bearing  upon  the  living  of 
life  than  the  act  of  choice.  Nor  is  it  only 
in  the  individual  development  that  choice 
is  the  determining  factor,  but  in  the  life  of 
peoples  and  nations  as  a  whole  action  along 
any  line  is  the  result  of  choice.  Choice 
cannot  be  separated  from  the  reaction  or 
the  result.  The  individual  who  chooses  to 
commit  crime  rather  than  to  do  good  deeds 
pays  the  penalty  by  death  or  imprisonment. 
The  nation  that  chooses  unfair  dealing  with 
a  weaker  people  pays  the  penalty  in  the  loss 
of  its  own  keen  moral  sense  as  a  people. 
The  person  who  chooses  to  drink  water 
from  an  impure  source  pays  the  penalty  in 
sickness.  The  city  that  chooses  to  ignore 
the  spreading  of  vice  among  its  people 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

develops    a    moral    sickness   as   well    as   a 
physical  sickness  hard  to  cure. 

The  history  of  the  world  records  in- 
stances where  individual  choice  has  acted 
directly  upon  the  larger  group  interests. 
Napoleon's  choice,  the  gratification  of  his 
own  ambition,  led  to  the  confusion  of 
continental  Europe.  Today,  however,  such 
choice  by  individuals  affects  smaller  groups. 
The  president  of  a  manufacturing  plant  who 
chooses  "  no  arbitration  with  his  men  "  pro- 
longs the  strike  that  involves  thousands. 
The  walking  delegate  who  chooses  to  preach 
the  doctrine  of  discontent  quickly  stirs  up 
trouble  among  the  laboring  class.  Indi- 
viduals who  choose  to  follow  the  red  flag 
of  anarchy  reap  revolution.  Revolution  for 
good  or  evil  can  only  result  as  the  choice 
of  individuals.  Again,  the  choice  of  the 
individual  may  not  connect  him  with  the 
life  and  interests  of  all,  but  may  tend  to 
isolate  him.  Few  men  have  been  able  en- 
tirely to  sever  their  connection  with  their 
fellows,  but  from  the  choices  resulting  from 
habits  and  ideas  of  life  we  have  the  develop- 
ment of  groups  of  individuals  more  or  less 

84 


Choice 

isolated  from  the  life  of  the  world,  such  as 
the  Hermits  of  the  early  church  or  the 
present  day  Shakers. 

When  the  field  of  choice  stretches  out 
before  us,  we  cannot  fail  to  recognize  the 
privilege  as  well  as  the  responsibility  of 
the  power  of  choosing.  It  is  a  privilege 
to  be  free  to  choose  as  one  wishes  in  all 
the  departments  of  life.  It  is  a  privilege 
to  be  able  by  one's  own  choosing  to  assist 
the  choice  of  others.  This  applies  in  the 
most  practical  sphere  of  life,  the  spending 
world.  To  choose  standards  of  dress  that 
are  simple  and  inexpensive  for  oneself 
makes  it  easier  for  another  whose  natural 
tendencies  are  toward  extravagantly  elabo- 
rate dress  to  choose  the  simpler  style.  If 
one  dresses  simply  in  these  days,  the  chances 
are  that  he  will  live  simply  in  most  ways. 
To  choose  food  that  is  plain  and  wholesome 
rather  than  rich  and  indigestible  is  not  only 
good  for  the  individual,  but  helps  to  estab- 
lish standards  that  conduce  to  the  health  of 
the  group.  Mr.  Ruskin  says,  "You  may 
grow  for  your  neighbor,  at  your  liking, 
grapes  or  grapeshot;  he  will  also,  catallac- 

85 


Woman  Who  Spends 

tically,  grow  grapes  or  grapeshot  for  you, 
and    you   will    each    reap   what    you   have 


sown." l 


Today  this  social  significance  of  indi- 
vidual choice  is  clearly  recognized.  With 
a  recognition  of  the  privilege  and  responsi- 
bility of  choice  comes  the  inevitable  ethical 
consideration  of  the  use  to  which  we  are 
to  put  this  power,  and  of  its  relation  to  all 
life.  Consciously  or  unconsciously,  we  sub- 
scribe to  an  ethical  standard  in  our  choice. 
It  is  either  worthy  of  approval  or  merits 
disapproval,  and  the  reaction  or  result  is 
directly  dependent  upon  the  character  of 
the  choices  which  it  leads  us  to  make. 

In  practical  matters  of  buying  and  spend- 
ing, our  standard  of  choice  is  the  result  of 
what  is  commonly  called  "taste."  Taste 
means  personal  opinion,  individual  liking. 
At  first  thought  it  would  seem  almost  im- 
possible to  vary  it  when  once  it  was  fixed 
and  difficult  to  determine  on  any  elements 
in  a  general  standard  of  taste,  since  it  might 
differ  from  individual  to  individual.  Yet,  if 
we  stop  to  think,  we  can  easily  see  that 

this  Last."     John  Ruskin. 
86 


*>7* 

Choice 

there  are  acknowledged  standards  in  taste. 
We  feel  justified  in  saying  of  another  wo- 
man that  her  taste  in  dress  is  good,  or  that 
in  her  house  furnishing  she  shows  poor 
taste.  Nor  do  we  feel  that  in  making  such 
judgments  we  are  gauging  what  we  con- 
demn by  our  own  ideas  of  what  is  fitting 
as  sole  criterion.  For  we  can  determine  to 
some  extent,  at  least,  the  principles  accord- 
ing to  which  we  agree  that  any  portion  of 
our  environment  is  an  evidence  of  good  or 
of  bad  taste. 

In  all  art,  civilization  has  long  since  estab- 
lished the  principle  that  to  be  good  a  thing 
must  serve  some  purpose  of  use  or  necessity. 
The  architect  who  overloads  his  building 
with  ornament  and  decoration,  which  is  the 
result  of  nothing  but  his  desire  to  embel- 
lish, has  not  added  to  but  has  impaired  the 
beauty  of  the  whole.  When  we  go  into  a 
parlor  crammed  with  knick-knacks  and  with 
furniture  so  that  there  is  hardly  room  to 
move  about,  we  are  justified  in  disapproval 
because  use  has  given  way  before  the  desire 
for  show. 

Besides  the  result  of  overcrowding,  to  lose 
87 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

sight  of  this  fundamental  principle  of  good 
taste  may  affect  our  choice  of  quality  in 
what  we  buy.  Many  of  the  wares  designed 
to  catch  the  eye  of  the  shopper  were  made 
with  no  thought  of  usefulness  —  flimsy  fur- 
niture, pitchers  that  one  cannot  pour  from, 
vases  that  offer  no  space  to  be  filled  with 
the  needed  water  for  their  burden  of  flowers. 
It  is  not  worth  while,  economically,  to  put 
our  money  into  these  things ;  if  we  have  at 
heart  the  idea  of  use,  we  go  armed  against 
the  temptations  of  the  shops. 

In  dress,  the  tendency  is  more  and  more 
to  violate  this  principle.  Seldom  have 
clothes  shown  so  much  needless  overelab- 
oration  as  in  the  present  styles.  Yet  the 
woman  who  for  reasons  of  economy,  or  any 
other  reason,  wishes  that  she  might  cling 
to  the  more  simple  vogue  has  good  taste 
on  her  side,  did  she  but  know  it,  and  could 
she  but  summon  sufficient  independence  to 
feel  justified  in  making  her  own  choice.  To 
be  "simplex  munditiis"  is  as  much  a  part 
of  refinement  now  as  in  the  days  of  Horace. 

But  all  these  things  that  make  up  our 
environment  —  dress,  house  and  table  fur- 

88 


jL*.       T*V»  r-  j    ^ju      i  * 

;  A**M-* 

i  — 


Choice 

nishings  —  must,  to  be  in  good  taste,  do 
more  than  serve  some  useful  purpose,  though 
that  comes  first  and  most  important.  They 
must  be  pleasing  to  the  eye.  We  would 
not  of  choice  dress  ever  in  burlap,  or  spend 
our  days  surrounded  only  by  kitchen  furni- 
ture. And  right  here  does  the  scale  of 
taste  begin  its  slide;  it  may  move  so  far 
to  the  side  of  "good"  that  it  is  out  of 
reach  for  many  of  us;  it  may  move  sadly 
far  to  the  side  of  "bad." 

But  here,  too,  happily  we  may  find  some 
middle  ground  that  rests  on  recognized  art 
principle.  The  two  elements  which  render 
an  object  pleasing  to  the  eye  are  its  color 
and  its  form.  ^Esthetics  lays  down  very 
decided  rules  as  to  what  constitutes  good 
taste  in  color.  If  individuals  would  only 
consult  these  rules  before  forming  their 
standard  of  taste,  we  should  be  saved  many 
hideous  perpetrations  in  dress  and  house 
furnishing  which  combine  reds  and  purples, 
or  something  equally  distressing.  Form,  also, 
as  reducible  to  a  matter  of  lines,  curves, 
and  angles,  is  determinable  as  good  or  bad 
on  definite  and  accepted  principles.  If  a 

89 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

realization  of  these  two  elements  which  con- 
stitute the  beauty  of  any  object,  fitness  to 
the  use  for  which  it  is  designed  and  pleas- 
ing quality,  could  only  come  to  manufac- 
turers and  the  shapers  of  our  styles,  good 
taste  would  be  far  more  prevalent  than  it 
is.  The  hat  that  extends  a  full  foot  upward 
from  a  pompadour  of  ridiculous  height,  the 
sleeve  that  falls  so  far  from  the  wrist  that 
it  is  impossible  to  keep  it  neat,  the  strange 
requirements  in  figure  that  lead  to  hope- 
less artificiality  and  menace  health  —  such 
offenses  against  art  and  taste  alike  would 
be  done  away. 

It  is  easy  to  see  to  how  great  an  extent 
our  choice  of  these  things  that  surround  us 
is  determined  by  our  taste,  natural  or  ac- 
quired. Even  if  we  have  but  little  to 
expend,  good  taste  will  tell ;  and  though 
we  put  forth  vast  amounts  of  money,  bad 
taste,  or  a  violation  of  the  principles  re- 
ferred to,  will  vulgarize  and  render  shoddy 
all  our  belongings.  /This  being  the  case, 
the  spending  woman  can  do  few  things 
more  worth  while  than  to  inspect  her  own 
standards  of  taste  in  an  impartial  way  and 

9o 


Choice 

see  if  they  be  praiseworthy.  Nor  need  she 
feel  that  a  cultivation  of  right  standards 
and  a  change  from  bad  to  good  in  taste 
is  too  much  to  undertake.  If  we  can  re- 
duce this  matter  of  taste  to  principles,  as 
we  have  seen  is  after  all  simple  and  easy; 
if  we  can  steer  safely  through  the  whirlpool 
of  conflicting  notions,  we  can  reach  the 
smooth  waters  of  sane  thinking,  and  guide 
our  craft  till  she  comes  into  the  haven  of 
sound  judgment  and  a  confidence  in  our 
canons  of  taste  that  will  insure  independ- 
ence and  lead  to  the  making  of  right  choices 
in  the  selection  of  the  thousand  and  one 
material  things  that  go  to  make  up  our 
environment. 

Taste  is  too  often  a  matter  of  chance  or 
pig-headedness,  and  where  there  is  little  in- 
dividuality to  express,  it  varies  with  the 
varying  mode  found  good  in  the  world's 
eyes.  It  is  plain  that  this  quality  which  fur- 
nishes our  ground  of  choice  among  things 
material  must,  in  order  to  meet  the  neces- 
sity of  testing  the  value  of  the  wares  brought 
to  our  notice,  be  as  stable  and  well  founded 
as  we  should  wish  to  have  our  code  of 

91 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

ethics  and  morals,  by  which  alone  we  can 
test  the  value  of  things  immaterial  in  the 
realm  of  thought  and  spirit.  In  the  life  of 
our  mind  we  like  not  to  be  swayed  by  every 
wind  of  doctrine,  an  easy  prey  to  the  pro- 
mulgators  of  any  fantastic  and  novel  view 
of  life  and  conduct.  Nor  are  we  so,  the 
most  of  us;  for,  with  or  without  thinking, 
we  all  formulate  some  theory  to  stand  as 
the  test  of  values.  How  then  can  we,  in 
the  life  of  the  body,  the  life  practical,  deter- 
mine value  if  we  have  not  a  firm  basis,  a 
definite  set  of  tests  that  anything  must  be 
able  to  stand  before  it  can  recommend 
itself  to  our  consideration?  Yet  granted 
that  we  have  mastered  the  canons  of  good 
taste,  we  have  more  to  do  to  provide  our- 
selves with  the  bulwark  that  we  seek.  For 
values  are  shifting  and  changing,  and  who 
shall  say  what  the  true  mark  of  value  is? 
What  definition  is  there  of  value  that 
would  be  of  practical  assistance  to  the 
spending  woman  ?  We  agree  with  the 
Austrian  school  of  political  economy  that 
the  theory  of  value  is  the  beginning  of 
economic  science,  for  a  study  of  its  history 

92 


Choice 

shows  how  the  entire  development  of  any 
given  theory  depended  upon  the  idea  of 
value.  The  very  word  suggests  centuries 
of  controversy,  numberless  theories,  thou- 
sands of  pages  of  dry  argument.  It  is 
almost  a  bigger  bugbear  than  "economics 
of  consumption,"  and  a  much  more  difficult 
term  to  translate.  Men  have  not  agreed  in 
their  attempts  to  define  value,  in  spite  of 
Mr.  Mill's  statement,  "  The  word  value  when 
used  without  adjunct  always  means,  in  polit- 
ical economy,  value-in-exchange." l  This  has 
a  definite  sound,  and  might  lead  one  to 
suppose  that  the  definition  of  value  was 
fixed  and  unchangeable.  The  "  without  ad- 
junct" is  the  important  part  of  that  state- 
ment, since  both  terms,  value  and  exchange, 
may  be  used  in  countless  combinations  all 
differing  in  meaning. 

Perhaps  before  we  attempt  to  get  from 
the  world  of  political  economy  a  definition 
for  the  purpose  of  guiding  a  woman's 
choice  in  her  spending,  it  would  be  well 
to  investigate  this  world  of  spending  in  its 
relation  to  the  economic  world,  to  see 

1  '•  Principles  of  Political  Economy."    John  Stuart  Mill. 
93 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

whether  it  is  a  part  of  it,  how  important 
a  part  of  it,  and  whether  we  have  any  right 
to  expect  a  recognition  of  it  by  economists, 
and  if  it  is  possible  to  have  that  recognition 
take  the  form  of  some  practical  working 
ideas. 

The  woman's  world  of  spending  centers 
very  largely  in  the  home  and  its  interests 
and  demands,  and  this  is  a  big,  vital  part 
of  the  economic  world.  We  base  this  claim 
first  upon  the  very  derivation  of  the  word 
economic  from  the  Greek  oucovopos,  mean- 
ing "  one  managing  a  household."  The  old 
definition  of  the  word  is,  "the  science  of 
household  affairs,"  showing  that  the  science 
began  with  the  home  and  its  interests,  and 
so  making  the  claim  for  a  consideration  of 
those  interests  a  reasonable  one  at  least. 
The  current  definition  of  economics  is,  "  the 
science  of  wealth."  Is  this  change  in  form 
of  expression  so  much  a  change  in  real 
meaning,  or  does  it  make  an  unconsciously 
sad  comment  on  the  trend  of  development 
in  the  home  life  of  today? 

In  time,  however,  with  the  growth  of  in- 
dustry which  became  of  great  importance 

94 


Choice 

to  whole  peoples  and  nations,  with  inven- 
tions which  made  greater  activities  possible, 
with  the  development  of  new  trades,  the 
work  of  the  world  passed  out  from  under 
the  control  of  the  household,  and  economics 
as  a  science  went  with  it  and  soon  became 
a  strange  language  to  the  new  "  manager  of 
the  home,"  the  woman. 

This  change,  or  rather  this  early  develop- 
ment of  economics,  was  in  accordance  with 
the  development  in  its  subject-matter.  The 
world  was  then  beginning  its  long  life  of 
production ;  exchange  meant  at  that  time 
transference  of  actual  commodities  pro- 
duced, and  not  until  later  came  the  me- 
dium of  exchange  which  today  we  call 
money.  So  the  development  of  the  science 
by  economists  has  been  along  the  lines 
of  production,  the  making  of  things,  for 
centuries. 

But  other  men  beside  the  economist 
struggled  with  the  science,  and  dared  to 
point  a  new  way  for  its  development  by 
insisting  that  a  science  of  production  was 
not  enough.  Men  were  "  using  things  "  as 
well  as  "making  things,"  and  their  use  of 

95 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

them  was  determining  the  well-being  of  in- 
dividuals. These  thinkers  were  not  scien- 
tists, but  prophets,  who  saw  little  good  in 
the  hard  science  of  wealth,  because  their 
standard  of  judgment  was  the  result  of  the 
effect  of  wealth  upon  human  life,  rather 
than  the  mere  progress  of  the  industrial 
world. 

Ruskin  studied  men,  not  production,  and 
his  cry,  "  There  is  no  wealth  but  life," l 
was  the  result.  How  that  prophet  of  the 
nineteenth  century  was  sneered  at  by  the 
economist  for  his  assertion  that  "  that 
country  is  the  richest  which  nourishes  the 
greatest  number  of  noble  and  happy  human 
beings;  that  man  is  richest  who,  having 
perfected  the  functions  of  his  own  life  to 
the  utmost,  has  also  the  widest  helpful  in- 
fluence, both  personal  and  by  means  of  his 
possessions,  over  the  lives  of  others." l  Yet 
who  can  say  that  the  important  change  tak- 
ing place  in  the  economic  treatment  of 
life  is  not  the  outcome  of  the  spirit  of  such 
prophets  as  Ruskin  and  Carlyle,  such  dream- 
ers as  William  Morris  and  Count  Tolstoi  ? 

1 "  Unto  this  Last."    Ad  valorem.     John  Ruskin. 

96 


Choice 

There  is  certainly  a  change  in  economic 
science  if  an  economist  of  today,  Mr.  Edward 
Devine,  can  make  this  statement :  "  If  polit- 
ical economy  is  the  science  of  wealth,  it  is 
as  much  concerned  with  the  way  in  which 
wealth  is  consumed  as  with  the  way  in 
which  it  is  produced.  If,  as  some  are 
already  preferring  to  call  it,  political  sci- 
ence be  the  science  of  human  wants,  then 
it  is  even  more  fundamentally  concerned 
with  the  consumption  than  with  the  pro- 
duction of  wealth."1  In  this  new  develop- 
ment lies  the  strong  connection  of  women 
and  their  world  of  spending  with  the  science 
of  economics.  To  use  things  produced,  to 
direct  the  use  of  things  for  food,  drink, 
dress,  for  travel,  music,  books,  to  determine 
those  things  that  shall  come  into  the  home 
and  those  that  shall  not  —  all  this  is  today 
the  power  of  the  woman,  and  it  is  her  eco- 
nomic function. 

What  must  be  her  standard  of  value  in 
developing  her  economic  function  ?  Can  it 
be  the  one  accepted  by  and  belonging  to  a 
past  stage  in  the  development  of  the  science 

*"  The  Economic  Function  of  Woman."    Edward  T.  Devine. 

97 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

"value  is  power  in  exchange"?  This  p*en- 
eral  economic  definition  has  been  treated  by 
every  economist,  and  therefore  we  prefer  to 
give  Walker's  description,  "  Value  is  the 
power  which  an  article  confers  upon  its 
possessor,  irrespective  of  legal  authority 
or  personal  sentiment,  to  command  in  ex- 
change for  itself  the  labor  or  the  products  of 
others." l  We  do  not  deny  the  strength  of 
this  statement  or  the  truth  of  it,  or  the  real 
significance  it  has  in  the  world  of  produc- 
tion, but  we  fail  to  see  how  it  can  stand  as 
the  only  meaning  of  value  necessary  for  the 
woman  in  her  world  of  spending.  Women 
recognize  value  largely  along  lines  of  "  per- 
sonal sentiment,"  and  this  cannot  be  ignored. 
Value  depends  upon,  is  measured  by,  her 
aims  in  life,  and  ideals  play  a  large  part  in 
the  spending  world.  Mr.  Devine,  who  has 
recognized  the  economic  function  of  woman, 
says,  "  Those  consumers  whose  ideals  are 
high,  whose  tastes  are  developed  harmoni- 
ously, and  whose  demands  call  for  a  wide 
variety  of  physical,  mental,  and  social  re- 
sources, will  win  a  commanding  place  in 

1 "  Political  Economy."     F.  A.  Walker. 

98 


w*      .J£     ' 


the  unconscious  struggle  which  continually 
goes  on." 

A  woman's  desires  form  tire  basis  for  her 
spending  ideals,  and  they  are  her  criterion 
for  value.  Lewis  Clark,  in  his  "  Trip  Across 
the  Continent,"  tells  many  instances  of  the 
effect  the  white  man's  possessions  had  upon 
the  Indian  ;  his  eager  desire  to  have  the 
string  of  beads  the  trader  brought  would 
often  cause  him  to  give  a  fine  horse  in 
exchange  for  them.  To  him  the  value  was 
in  possessing  not  what  he  needed  but  what 
he  desired,  and  the  power  the  simple  string 
of  beads  had  in  exchange,  quite  out  of  pro- 
portion to  its  real  worth,  was  measured  and 
determined  by  the  strength  of  the  Indian's 
desire. 

Value  for  women  is  determined  more  or 
less  by  the  "degree  of  desirability,"  and 
much  of  her  spending  is  for  what  finds  a 
figurative  description  in  "  blue  beads."  All  f 
sorts  of  desires  control  her  purse.  She 
values  the  things  she  longs  for,  and  will 
sacrifice  time  and  strength  to  gratify  a  fancy 
ten  times  more  quickly  than  to  supply  a 
need  considered  pressing  by  somebody  else.j 

99 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

Value  in  this  way  becomes  "  the  measure  of 
effective  utility,"  according  to  Mr.  Devine, 
"the  utility  of  any  commodity  being  its 
power  to  satisfy  desire/'1  and  the  value  of 
a  thing  increases  with  the  rise  of  its  power 
to  satisfy  desire. 

Such  a  conception  of  value  at  once  intro- 
duces ethical  considerations,  and  we  begin 
to  build  upon  what  ought  to  be  the  aims 
and  desires  of  women  upon  which  their 
ideas  of  value  are  based.  Considering  the 
things  for  which  she  spends,  the  place  of 
an  aim  in  life  in  her  money  calculation  is 
easily  seen.  Her  aim  may  be  to  buy  pure 
food  for  a  family.  What  is  the  average 
woman's  attitude  toward  that  department? 
To  get  it  done  as  quickly  as  possible  and 
with  as  little  thought  as  possible.  A  very 
large  proportion  of  her  income  goes  to  the 
butcher.  But  if  her  desire  or  aim  is  to  buy 
pure  food  for  her  family,  what  influence 
would  such  a  desire  have  in  the  market 
place  ?  Her  desire  for  pure  food  arose  per- 
haps from  a  study  of  the  effects  of  impure 
food,  or  from  actual  contact  with  sickness 

1 "  Economics."     Edward  T.  Devine. 


100 


Choice 

and  death.  She  therefore  studies  the  sub- 
ject of  food,  its  relation  to  the  health  of 
individuals,  to  the  happiness  of  the  whole, 
and  as  a  result  the  standard  of  food  value 
is  based  upon  the  power  of  any  given  article 
to  satisfy  her  pure  food  desire.  She  knows 
when  her  money  expended  has  brought  the 
best  value  by  the  results  in  health  and 
strength,  for  these  are  perfectly  tangible. 
When  she  chooses  the  food,  her  choice  is 
based  upon  her  knowledge  of  the  value  of 
different  food  stuffs.  It  will  be  the  same 
with  her  house,  dress,  books,  travel,  anything 
and  everything  for  which  she  spends.  If 
she  has  such  aims  and  ideals  she  will 
"  choose  the  best  instead  of  the  good,"  and 
the  results  will  show  better  taste,  more 
desirable  adjustment  of  life  to  income. 

Patten,  in  his  "  Theory  of  Prosperity," 
says :  "  Misery  is  ^^^-adjustment,  due  to  a 
lack  of  harmony  between  effort  and  result. 
That  many  people  regard  life  as  a  burden 
cannot  be  doubted,  but  the  state  of  mind  is 
due  to  a  misuse  of  goods,  not  to  a  lack  of 
them."  Here  again  the  practical  "  ought " 
is  suggested,  and  wise  choice,  based  upon  a 

101 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

worthy  aim  in  life,  will  result  from  a  knowl- 
edge of  values.  Many  people  believe  that 
one's  aim  in  life  should  depend  upon  the 
income  one  has  to  spend.  That  is  only 
partly  true.  Very  often  our  incomes  de- 
pend upon  our  aims  in  life,  and  we  show  a 
surprising  lack  of  shrewdness  in  this  matter 
when  we  make  our  aims  general,  when  we 
put  the  goal  far  ahead,  only  to  be  reached 
by  an  increase  of  income. 

Some  women  feel  that  power  of  choice 
comes  only  with  a  large  income,  which  is 
not  true,  however  much  more  attractive  the 
field  of  choice  may  seem  viewed  from  the 
standpoint  of  plenty  to  spend.  However 
small  our  means,  choice  is  ours.  We  fail 
to  let  our  aims  in  life  influence  us  suffi- 
ciently in  our  daily  spending,  and  this  re- 
sults in  a  "  non-adjustment "  of  expenses  to 
income,  or  a  lack  of  harmony  between  effort 
and  result. 

"  To  aim  high "  has  been  a  valuable 
motive,  but  in  the  spending  world  it  is  a 
dangerous  one.  We  have  made  value  a 
relative  term,  dependent  upon  the  aims  and 
desires  of  life,  which  in  turn  develop  our 


UNIVERSITY 


Choice 

tastes  and  determine  our  choices.  It  is 
reasonable  to  expect  that  these  aims  and 
desires  must  not  be  beyond  our  means  of 
supplying  them.  Women,  if  they  aim  at 
all,  aim  too  high  ;  spend  for  food,  dress, 
houses,  which  do  not  fit  their  incomes. 
When  a  woman  can  buy  a  chair  for  her 
parlor  which  does  not  harmonize  with  any- 
thing in  the  room  because  it  is  so  much 
finer,  she  feels  that  she  has  pushed  her 
household  a  little  higher,  that  they  are 
really  getting  on  in  the  world.  On  the 
contrary,  she  has  made  everything  else  in 
the  room  look  shabby,  and  to  do  this  she 
has  probably  cut  herself  off  from  several 
simpler  pieces  of  furniture  which  could  have 
been  in  harmony  with  the  whole.  Such  a 
woman's  aim  in  life  is  evidently  to  possess 
those  things  which  are  in  proportion  to  an 
income  three  times  as  large  as  her  own. 
In  the  matter  of  dress  it  is  far  worse.  We 
see  the  wearer  of  an  elegant  gown,  which 
belongs  in  a  carriage,  climbing  weary  flights 
of  stairs  to  dingy  little  apartments.  To 
have  such  gowns,  many  women  sacrifice 
the  better  things  of  life. 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

In  the  spending  of  an  income,  wise  choice 
will  depend  upon  the  development  of  good 
taste  which  our  spending  will  express.  To 
acquire  this  taste,  we  must  possess  a  stand- 
ard of  value,  practical  and  ethical,  resulting 
from  the  satisfaction  of  desires  and  the  ful- 
fillment of  aims  which  bring  results  worth 
while  to  the  individual  and  of  help  to  the 
community.  Truly  for  the  woman  spender 
the  standard  of  value  may  well  be,  "those 
things  which  avail  toward  life." l  From  such 
a  standard,  choice,  wise  choice,  will  follow. 
Such  a  perspective  will  cause  to  sink  into 
insigrtificance  and  out  of  sight  many  of 
the  fads,  whims,  and  fancies  which  "avail 
not,"  at  the  same  time  leaving  clear  and 
undimmed  the  broader  horizon,  which  is 
strength  and  power  "to  choose  the  best 
instead  of  the  good." 

1 "  Unto  this  Last."     John  Ruskin. 


104 


SATISFACTION 


The  direct  satisfaction  of  human  wants  by  the  enjoyment  of 
the  utilities  in  goods  is  called  consumption. 

Ely  and  Wicker,  p.  84. 

Want  satisfaction  forms  the  motive  to  all  economic  activity, 
however  reprehensible  the  want. 

Ely  and  Wicker,  /.  85. 

We  should  cultivate  enjoyment  or  consumption  that  is  in- 
clusive or  inexclusive  rather  than  exclusive  in  its  nature,  in  order 
that  a  great  real  satisfaction  may  flow  from  a  comparatively  small 
expenditure.  Ely  and  Wicker,  p.  109. 


1 06 


CHAPTER  V 

SATISFACTION 

'""PHIS  subject  cannot  be  avoided.  We 
1  must  show,  or  at  least  indicate,  the 
results  of  all  that  we  have  discussed.  Wo- 
men have  learned  through  sad  experience 
to  be  cautious  of  new  schemes  and  methods 
for  their  betterment.  We  face  determined 
resistance  without  even  a  trial  or  hearing 
unless  we  can  give  a  promise.  If  women 
gain  a  clear  knowledge  of  practical  things; 
if  they  understand  vital  needs ;  if  they  learn 
a  new  independence  in  buying ;  if  they  estab- 
lish firmly  their  economic  function,  that  is, 
power  to  demand  what  they  want  produced, 
founded  on  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
best  values ;  if  women  who  spend  accom- 
plish all  this,  are  the  practical  results  going 
to  be  worth  the  effort  ? 

Such   a  question   is   perfectly  justifiable. 

Women  have   been   deluded   too  often   by 

short   cuts   to   happiness.     "  Aids    to   light 

housekeeping  "  have  often  resulted  in  heavy 

107 


,  u    x       .^A       fK 

\\  *"a(*^  T^ 

\\         Crt^~VS     \W- 

The  Woman  Who  Spends 

bills  to  be  paid,  and  the  frequent  invitations 
by  schemers  to  free  women  from  some  of 
the  tiresome  responsibilities  of  life  have 
usually  meant  the  loss  not  only  of  responsi- 
bilities, but  of  large  amounts  of  money. 
No,  indeed,  women  want  assured  results 
before  they  undertake  any  new  method, 
however  attractive. 

We  must  promise  satisfaction.  To  satisfy 
our  wants  is  the  only  economic  reason  for 
spending ;  whether  they  be  necessary  or  un- 
necessary, foolish  or  sensible,  has  nothing  to 
do  with  economic  satisfaction.  You  make 
a  choice,  demand  certain  goods,  and  when 
your  demand  is  supplied  you  are  satisfied, 
says  the  economist  But  in  our  promise  of 
satisfaction  we  must  go  beyond  the  purely 
economic  conception,  and  this  can  be  done 
without  taking  our  promise  into  the  realm 
of  theory  alone. 

Satisfaction  will  depend  upon  the  aims 
in  life  which  are  gained  through  the  spend- 
ing of  money.  We  aim  first  to  gratify  our 
desires,  and  the  quickest  way  to  that  end 
is  to  spend  with  a  purpose.  To  possess 
this  first  element  of  satisfaction,  one  must 

108 


Satisfaction 


not  drift  in  and  out  of  stores,  influenced 
by  every  bargain  sale  and  reduced  goods 
counter,  but  one  must  spend  with  a  definite 
purpose.  Gratification  of  desires  has  the 
widest  of  fields,  because  aims  in  life  are 
innumerable.  A  shop  girl,  earning  seven 
dollars  a  week,  has  a  desire  to  appear  as  if 
she  had  no  connection  with  the  conditions 
and  life  which  would  be  consistent  with  her 
earnings.  I  know  one  whose  determination 
to  own  a  silk  petticoat  led  her  to  buy  a  ten- 
dollar  skirt  on  the  installment  plan.  It  took 
purposeful  spending  to  gratify  her  desire, 
whatever  one  may  think  of  the  aim. 

Every  year  hundreds  of  school  teachers 
travel  abroad,  not  luxuriously  to  be  sure, 
but  comfortably.  Ten  years  ago  it  was 
the  rare  exception  to  whom  the  opportunity 
seemed  possible.  The  change  is  not  due 
to  possession  of  more  money  so  much  as  to 
purposeful  spending  of  what  is  possessed. 
The  time  when  all  the  good  and  desirable  j 
things  in  life  seemed  to  be  possible  only  to  ( 
those  of  large  income  is  gone  forever.  The 
poor  own  houses  and  lands,  possess  the 
comforts  of  life,  because  the  possibilities  of 
109 


£*>•>  f  I'VT*  I  fc  -» 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

the  spending  world  have  been  opened  to  the 
spender  through  greater  and  cheaper  pro- 
duction, through  invention  and  discovery 
along  all  lines  of  living.  "  How  we  bought 
a  house  on  eight  hundred  dollars  a  year" 
no  longer  surprises  the  reading  public. 
People  have  come  to  believe  that  much  is 
possible  where  money  is  spent  with  a  pur- 
,pose.  We  may  not  always  agree  with  the 
aim  or  the  methods  used  to  attain  the  end. 
We  may  feel  that  the  struggle  for  five  or 
ten  years  to  own  a  house  is  a  very  bad 
investment  of  our  money.  To  some  of  us 
the  possession  of  a  house  may  not  be  worth 
all  the  sacrifice  made  to  get  it.  But  we 
all  recognize  one  thing,  that  the  first  step 
toward  satisfaction  is  the  gratification  of 
our  desires,  and  to  accomplish  this  we  must 
spend  with  a  purpose. 

But  satisfaction  considered  from  the  spend- 
ing point  of  view  is  not  all  gratification  of 
desires.  There  is  a  far  more  important  side 
to  satisfaction  which  we  expect  —  "  content- 
ment in  our  possessions"  —  but  it  is  much 
harder  to  attain.  Why  we  are  not  content 
when  desires  are  gratified  is  a  question  for 


wv 

batisjaction 

ethical  and  spiritual  consideration.  There 
are  as  many  satisfactions  as  there  are  de- 
sires. For  man,  none  of  the  satisfactions 
are  permanent  because  the  ends  or  aims  are 
constantly  changing.  The  world  of  sport 
has  as  a  foundation  stone  the  satisfaction 
to  be  gained  by  just  playing  the  game. 
Every  healthy  normal  boy  loves  his  game 
of  ball  or  his  football  scrimmage  because 
of  the  satisfaction  it  is  to  him  to  meet  the 
demands  these  games  make  upon  his  mind 
and  body.  Of  course  he  plays  to  win,  but 
there  is  great  satisfaction  in  just  the  play. 
There  is  always  possible  satisfaction  in  the 
mere  doing  of  things,  in  processes  them- 
selves, without  regard  to  results,  in  means, 
with  no  thought  of  ends. 

Opposed  often  to  this  satisfaction  found 
in  action  is  the  satisfaction  taken  in  results, 
the  contemplative  enjoyment  of  work  well 
done,  the  feeling  of  pleasure  in  the  end 
gained,  though  the  doing  be  but  an  irk- 
some task.  The  artist  who  works  with 
quick,  impatient  stroke  of  brush  on  canvas 
finds  his  real  satisfaction  when  he  throws 
his  tools  from  him  and  gazes  upon  the 
in 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

finished  picture.  There  are  women  to 
whom  the  labor  itself  is  irksome,  but  the 
clean,  restful  home  resulting  gives  satisfac- 
tion. There  are  scientists  to  whom  proc- 
esses are  nothing,  results  everything. 

Again,  we  find  our  effort  to  gain  satis- 
faction of  a  purely  personal,  individual  na- 
ture playing  a  large  part  in  life,  and  the 
outcome  of  this  brings  both  good  and  evil. 
The  man  whose  satisfaction  can  only  lie  in 
the  gaining  of  his  own  ends,  regardless  of 
the  aims  of  others,  seeks  a  dangerous  grat- 
ification. The  man  whose  satisfaction,  al- 
though the  personal  pleasure  is  not  wanting, 
as  it  is  the  result  of  his  effort,  standards, 
and  ideals,  yet  includes  a  consideration  of 
the  good  of  others  finds  that  he  has  taken 
a  progressive  step.  Today,  these  two  kinds 
of  satisfaction,  the  individual  and  what  might 
be  called  the  group,  are  constantly  pitted 
against  each  other  in  the  struggle  of  life. 
In  questions  of  municipal  reforms,  in  the 
development  of  civic  advantages,  in  the 
schools,  in  the  churches,  in  the  homes, 
these  two  kinds  of  satisfaction  are  enemies 
instead  of  friends.  The  rights  of  the  indi- 


112 


Satisfaction 

vidual  against  the  good  of  all!  How  to 
reconcile  the  interests  of  both  is  the  ques- 
tion the  twentieth  century  has  to  solve. 
How  to  gain  satisfaction  from  the  building 
of  a  rapid  transit  subway  which  depreciates 
the  value  of  your  property,  but  which  gives 
better  service  to  the  people  who  must  leave 
the  city  at  night  and  return  in  the  morn- 
ing; how  to  gain  satisfaction  from  seeing 
life  made  easier  for  a  larger  number,  with- 
out regard  to  the  effect  upon  one's  own 
likes  or  dislikes,  are  practical  questions 
which  show  the  necessity  for  a  new  and 
broader  conception  of  individual  satisfac- 
tion, for  making  it  a  part  of  the  satisfaction 
of  the  larger  group.  Given  such  a  concep- 
tion, the  result  would  not  bring  individual 
sacrifice,  but  individual  gain. 

To  the  working  of  this  change,  the  great 
stumbling-block  is  habit.  We  cling  to  what 
we  are  used  to,  not  only  in  material  posses- 
sions but  in  ideals  and  standards,  in  ways 
of  thinking  and  methods  of  judgment. 
"  What  has  been "  is  a  stronger  influence 
for  most  of  us  than  "  what  might  be."  The 
beaten  path,  we  think,  promises  a  surer 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

satisfaction  than  a  scramble  through  the 
underbrush,  in  whose  shadows  may  lurk 
the  stinging  serpent  where  we  thought  to 
pluck  the  sweet  wood  violet.  Yet  the  sat- 
isfaction that  comes  with  the  possession 
of  the  old  and  tried  is  not  what  seems  to 
all  people  a  worthy  aim.  To  many  the 
new  has.  greater  charms,  and  the  scramble 
through  the  underbrush  is  alluring.  To  be 
first  along  a  new  path  for  the  sake  of  those 
who  may  come  after  brings  a  sense  of  satis- 
faction which  is  one  of  the  greatest  influ- 
ences in  the  progress  of  civilization. 

Thus  we  could  go  on,  enumerating  the 
different  kinds  of  satisfaction  which  deter- 
mine life,  showing  how  they  are  related  to 
one  another,  noting  the  interaction  of  some, 
the  separation  between  others.  But  our 
question  is  of  spending,  and  of  the  satis- 
faction women  find  in  it.  All  the  types  we 
have  remarked  may  be  shown  as  exercising 
a  motive  influence  over  women  in  their 
spending.  There  is  the  woman  who  loves 
to  spend  as  the  boy  plays  his  game,  her 
pleasure  lying  in  the  act  itself ;  there  is  the 
woman  who  finds  but  dull  and  hard  any 

114 


Satisfaction 

expenditure  which  does  not  result  in  direct 
personal  gratification  to  herself  or  some  of 
her  family,  great  as  may  be  the  worth  or 
need  of  the  particular  group  satisfaction, 
to  insure  or  procure  which  her  money  is 
given.  And  how  many  are  the  women 
whose  spending  is  regulated  by  habit,  by 
what  others  have  done  before  them,  or  what 
others  are  now  doing  around  them,  who 
do  not  take  the  time,  and  who  cannot  or 
will  not  take  the  thought,  that  might  lead 
to  the  perception  of  possibilities  of  satis- 
faction in  spending  for  the  hitherto  new 
and  untried,  if  only  they  had  the  courage 
of  conviction  and  would  dare  take  the  initi- 
ative. For,  after  all,  satisfaction,  economic- 
ally at  least,  means  contentment  in  one's 
possessions,  in  those  material  things  for 
which  one  spends;  and  if  a  woman  finds 
herself  discontented  and  full  of  unrest,  her 
spending  must  have  much  to  do  with  it. 
As  we  have  discussed  knowledge  we  have 
found  that  it  led  to  true  independence  in 
a  woman's  spending.  How  far  will  the 
exercise  of  this  independence  bring  con- 
tentment ? 

"5 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

Contentment  has  to  many  ears  a  sound 
that  implies  permanency.  It  is  a  state  that 
once  reached  abides  forever.  It  presents 
always  a  fair  picture,  like  a  beautiful  garden 
which  one  may  enter,  closing  the  gate  be- 
hind one,  and  resting  within  the  shade  and 
fragrance  the  remainder  of  one's  days.  But 
life  and  experience  show  that  contentment, 
like  satisfaction,  is  but  transitory.  This 
means  not  that  it  is  impossible  to  be  always 
contented,  but  that  the  sources  of  content 
will  be  constantly  changing,  just  as  satis- 
faction changes  at  the  fulfillment  of  each 
fresh  desire  or  need. 

Perhaps  the  best  way  to  find  the  means 
to  the  end  of  contentment  is  to  discover 
the  causes  of  discontent.  The  influence 
which  seems  strongest,  regarding  discontent 
solely  from  the  economic  point  of  view, 
comes  from  without,  and  is  what  the  econ- 
omist calls  "the  prevailing  sentiments  of 
the  community."  Not  alone  in  matters 
economic  do  we  feel  the  pressure  of  these 
sentiments,  and  it  is  not  possible  to  disre- 
gard them.  They  must  be  studied,  weighed, 
accepted,  or  rejected  as  they  further  or 
116 


Satisfaction 

hinder  the  development  of  individual  and 
of  community. 

There  are  two  ways  of  following  these 
sentiments,  blindly  and  intelligently,  and 
these  two  ways  result  in  two  kinds  of  dis- 
content. An  intelligent  understanding  and 
acceptance  of  a  sentiment  or  standard,  which 
means  a  wise  adaptation  of  it  to  one's  own 
need  and  environment,  brings  a  discontent 
which  is  necessary  in  all  advancement  to- 
ward content.  To  follow  a  standard  blindly, 
simply  because  it  prevails  for  a  time  in  a 
community,  without  a  thought  as  to  the 
value  or  good  that  may  result,  brings  a 
restless  discontent  that  seeks  only  change, 
no  matter  of  what  sort,  a  state  from  which 
contentment  never  grows. 

When  the  spending  woman  lacks  con- 
tentment in  her  possessions,  "  the  prevailing 
sentiments  of  the  community  "  are  probably 
the  cause.  If  she  accepts  a  new  standard 
intelligently,  independently,  her  present  dis- 
content is  only  a  matter  of  time  and  energy. 
She  will  have  to  study  the  new  standard  in 
its  relation  to  her  needs  and  those  of  others ; 
she  will  have  to  give  her  best  energy  to  a 
117 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

careful  application  of  it  to  her  life  and 
interests,  and  her  ultimate  acceptance  of  it 
must  depend  upon  the  success  or  failure  of 
her  experiments.  If  she  follows  "  prevailing 
sentiments  "  blindly,  her  discontentment  will 
be  the  matter  of  a  lifetime. 

Fifteen  years  ago,  people  living  in  cities 
were  envied  by  those  who  must  perforce 
remain  in  the  country,  and  the  latter  were 
more  or  less  pitied  by  the  city  people. 
How  changed  is  the  attitude  today !  The 
majority  of  men  and  women  forced  to  live 
in  the  city  the  greater  part  of  the  year  have 
as  an  aim  in  life  a  "place  in  the  country," 
large  or  small.  To  own  a  house  in  the  city 
and  board  in  the  country  for  a  few  weeks 
in  the  summer  is  no  longer  the  aim  of  the 
average  spending  woman.  Rather  is  it  to 
take  an  apartment  in  town  for  a  few  months 
in  the  winter  and  have  a  country  home  for 
the  rest  of  the  year. 

A  distinct  change  of  sentiment  has  taken 
place,  in  this  instance,  of  the  way  in  which 
the  income  is  spent  for  a  home.  The 
change  came  as  the  result  of  advance  along 
many  lines.  Invention  did  much  to  make  it 
118 


Satisfaction 

possible.  The  effect  of  rapid  transit  spread- 
ing a  network  of  suburban  steam  and  elec- 
tric lines  over  whole  sections  of  country 
was  to  make  hundreds  of  new  places  avail- 
able for  homes  because  they  could  be  easily 
reached.  The  perfecting  of  the  cold  storage 
system  made  the  question  of  food  an  easy 
one  to  solve.  The  telephone  banished  the 
sense  of  isolation,  and  made  "  burying  one- 
self in  the  country  "  an  impossibility.  Thus 
an  intelligent  following  of  a  new  sentiment, 
at  once  recognized  as  a  change  for  the 
better  in  the  living  of  life,  has  brought 
such  contentment  into  the  lives  of  men 
that  no  one  fears  a  return  to  the  old  way 
of  living.  In  following  a  "  prevailing  senti- 
ment "  women  need  knowledge,  independ- 
ence, and  power  to  choose  the  best;  for  if 
they  do  this,  contentment  in  their  posses- 
sions cannot  fail  to  result. 

Fashion  is  the  word  applied  to  many  of 
the  prevailing  sentiments  which  are  sup- 
posed to  be  without  reason,  and  which 
undergo  frequent  change  merely  for  the 
sake  of  change.  If  a  thing  is  foolish,  bad, 
useless,  a  passing  fad,  fashion  is  responsible. 
119 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

But  fashion  has  held  much  that  is  good, 
and  is  not  infrequently  a  means  of  advance- 
ment. Herbert  Spencer  defined  it  as  "a 
form  of  social  regulation  analogous  to  con- 
stitutional government  as  a  form  of  politi- 
cal regulation  " ;  and  in  our  country,  where 
constitutional  government  is  thoroughly  be- 
lieved in,  fashion  as  a  social  regulation  has 
almost  equal  force.  There  have  been  many 
sensible  fashions  in  dress  for  women.  The 
short  skirt,  instead  of  a  train  which  fashion 
decreed  should  be  allowed  to  drag  in  the 
dust  and  dirt  of  the  streets;  and  heavy 
walking  boots,  instead  of  paper-soled  French 
kid  shoes,  have  been  fashions  worth  follow- 
ing, because  they  brought  better  health, 
freer  outdoor  life,  and,  we  believe,  more 
contentment.  There  have  been  fashions  in 
houses  which  have  brought  greater  content- 
ment to  all  who  could  follow  them.  The 
old  notion  of  having  two  or  three  rooms  in 
every  house  which  were  merely  for  show, 
and  which  the  family  never  used  except  on 
special  occasions,  is  gone,  we  trust,  forever. 
In  the  modern  house,  every  inch  of  space 
is  for  the  use  of  the  family.  In  place  of 

I2O 


^       I  .A/r-tA^""'^ 


Satisfaction 

two  small  rooms,  a  parlor  for  company,  a 
sitting  room  for  common,  one  finds  a  big, 
airy  living  room  which  serves  both  purposes. 
Thus  we  see  that  as  ideas  and  standards  of 
living  progress  they  find  expression  in  our 
environment;  and  as  they  meet  the  needs 
of  life,  which  are  constantly  unfolding,  they 
bring  greater  contentment. 

As  knowledge  serves  independence,  so 
independence  serves  contentment.  There 
is  a  story  told  of  three  women  who  decided 
to  try  this  "  independence  idea."  They  de- 
termined to  buy  one  handsome  winter  suit 
once  in  three  years,  instead  of  a  new  one 
each  year,  which  a  slight  change  in  style 
had  always,  to  their  minds,  necessitated. 
They  confess  now  that  it  was  dreadful  for 
the  first  three  years ;  but  their  friends  have 
become  used  to  this  "eccentricity,"  and 
once  in  three  years  these  women  have  the 
satisfaction  of  purchasing  the  best,  and  they 
are  much  admired  by  the  weaker  sisters 
who  dare  not  depart  from  the  ways  of 
fashion.  Independence  will  involve  choice, 
and  much  of  our  contentment  will  depend 
on  how  we  choose.  There  are  so  many 

121 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

fashions,  so  many  styles,  so  many  senti- 
ments which  are  changing  from  month  to 
month,  most  of  them  harmless,  but  all  more 
or  less  expensive. 

Content  is  not  a  state  of  stagnation, 
neither  is  it  a  constant  whirlpool.  Biolog- 
ically, change  is  absolutely  necessary  to  life 
development.  The  new  is  stimulating,  re- 
freshing to  the  mind ;  and  as  long  as 
change  of  methods,  of  aims,  of  environ- 
ment is  adding  to  the  strength  of  the  life 
it  is  good.  The  higher  the  organism,  how- 
ever, the  more  sensitive  it  is  to  change,  and 
the  point  is  quickly  reached  when  change 
may  become  destructive  in  its  power.  It 
might  be  that  it  came  too  rapidly,  not  giv- 
ing the  life  time  to  take  a  new  and  firmer 
hold  upon  the  sources  of  its  strength;  or 
the  time  might  not  have  been  ripe,  and  the 
change  have  sapped  the  life  blood. 

Economically,  too,  change  is  necessary  to 
our  development,  given  wisdom  in  choice. 
We  sometimes  fail  to  grasp  the  significance 
in  the  industrial  world  of  these  countless 
changes  in  the  fashion  of  things  pro- 
duced. The  tremendous  waste  involved 


122 


Satisfaction 

when  fashion  demands  feathers  and  not 
flowers  for  our  hats  is  seldom  considered. 
Hundreds  of  dollars  lost  in  materials,  in 
machinery,  hundreds  of  workers  without 
employment,  or  forced  down  to  a  wage  in 
a  trade  they  do  not  know,  under  conditions 
that  often  cost  the  life  of  body  and  soul, 
constitute  some  of  the  results  for  which  the 
unreasoning  changes  in  fashion,  to  which  we 
subscribe  without  so  much  as  a  thought,  are 
responsible. 

If  the  first  step  toward  satisfaction  is  to 
be  accomplished  by  purposeful  spending, 
the  second  step,  "contentment  in  our  pos- 
sessions," will  be  dependent  upon  a  wise 
choice  in  following  the  "prevailing  senti- 
ments" in  the  spending  of  our  money. 
The  third  element  in  gaining  satisfaction 
is  enjoyment  of  possessions,  and  this,  in 
turn,  will  depend  upon  the  first  steps.  In- 
dependence which  is  based  upon  knowledge 
of  our  own  needs  and  wants  and  a  develop- 
ment of  individual  standards  will  be  the 
greatest  factor  in  our  enjoyment.  Unrest 
comes  to  all,  to  him  who  has  much,  to 
him  who  has  little,  because  all  are  sus- 
123 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

ceptible  to  the  influences  that  cause  dis- 
content. The  important  influences  in  the 
spending  world  are  from  without.  "  Not 
what  we  lack,  but  what  others  have,"  causes 
us  unrest,  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  we 
miss  enjoyment. 

In  the  old  part  of  my  city  there  is  a  big 
old-fashioned  house,  the  home  of  a  happy 
family,  where  I  love  to  go.  One  day  I 
told  her  who  has  made  that  home  for  thirty 
years  that  it  rested  me  to  come  there  be- 
cause there  seemed  to  be  so  little  unrest 
and  so  much  satisfaction,  and  I  asked  her 
to  tell  me  why  it  was  so.  This  was  her 
answer :  "  When  we  began  the  home  we 
decided  upon  one  purpose  in  spending  our 
money,  and  it  was  that  the  physical  health, 
the  intellectual  and  spiritual  development 
of  the  children  should  be  the  first  consider- 
ation. In  carrying  out  this  purpose,  we 
determined  to  know  the  value  of  all  influ- 
ences that  presented  themselves  before  we 
changed  our  methods.  Books,  music,  travel, 
country  life  part  of  the  year  have  come 
before  Turkish  rugs  and  fine  clothes.  We 
have  had  such  good  times  carrying  out  the 
124 


Satisfaction 

purpose  that  even  now,  when  we  could 
manage  both,  we  are  content  with  the  old 
home,  the  old-fashioned  furniture,  and  the 
out-of-style  street."  Purpose,  wise  choice, 
independence,  had  brought  satisfaction  of 
many  kinds. 

Whatever  the  result,  city  house,  tiny  apart- 
ment, crowded  tenement,  suburban  home,  or 
distant  country  farm,  for  which  we  spend, 
satisfaction  will  result  as  we  spend  to  ex- 
press our  own  purpose,  our  own  choice, 
our  own  standards.  Our  failure  is  due  to 
lack  of  purpose,  of  choice,  because  we  know 
not  the  value  of  things  we  buy;  to  lack 
of  individual  standards,  because  we  follow 
blindly  our  neighbors.  We  are  often  told 
that  satisfaction,  like  happiness,  is  one  of 
the  things  that  money  cannot  buy,  and  we 
believe  it.  But  we  may  assert  this,  that 
satisfaction  in  the  things  we  buy  depends 
absolutely  upon  how  we  spend,  upon  the 
ideals  we  have  in  mind  when  we  spend. 


RESPONSIBILITY 


So  much  is  made  and  waiting  for  us  that  we  are  seldom 
called  on  to  order  goods.  We  put  money  in  our  pocket  and 
look  at  the  shop  windows  before  we  become  conscious  of  what 
we  want.  Forgetting  that  the  industrial  world  is  our  servant, 
and,  like  any  good  servant,  is  only  forestalling  our  wishes,  we 
get  into  the  habit  of  thinking  that  we  have  no  responsibility  for 
what  we  buy.  Thus  the  responsibility,  which  the  consumer 
could  not  have  escaped  if  he  had  kept  the  direct  guidance  of 
industry  in  his  hands,  is  avoided  by  leaving  it  in  the  hands  of 
the  producer.  .  .  . 

Now,  in  this  matter  of  the  buying  of  goods,  there  are  two 
distinct  responsibilities  which  must  not  be  confused;  one  is 
responsibility  for  the  conditions  under  which  goods  are  made, 
the  other  is  responsibility  for  their  being  made  at  all.  .  .  . 

The  serious  fact  is,  that  the  shape  in  which  a  community 
allows  or  directs  its  wealth  to  be  embodied  makes  the  greatest 
possible  difference  to  the  well-being  of  that  community.  As  a 
good  is,  so  must  it  be  used.  While  it  is  wheat,  the  grain  may 
be  seed  or  it  may  be  food.  But,  once  it  takes  the  shape  of  the 
loaf,  it  has  lost  forever  the  potency  of  the  seed,  and,  moreover, 
if  not  used  quickly,  does  not  even  remain  food. 

"Studies  in  Economics"     William  Smart. 


128 


T 


CHAPTER   VI 

RESPONSIBILITY 

HIS  is  the  question  above  all  others 
where  one  hesitates  to  suggest  or  to 
criticise,  to  praise  or  to  blame.  To  the 
woman  of  large  income,  as  well  as  to 
the  woman  of  small  allowance,  one  shrinks 
from  pressing  home  the  subject  of  responsi- 
bility. The  idea  is  comparatively  new  in 
practice,  and  suggests  to  many  women  a 
disagreeable  aspect.  It  seems  to  limit  and 
bind  them  in  a  matter  that  appears  to  some 
as  a  personal  and  private  affair.  The  idea 
of  a  broad  responsibility  has  not  yet  become 
common.  Theoretically,  women  know  that 
they  are  responsible  to  the  source  of  the 
income  for  the  spending  of  it.  But  to  the 
woman  whose  income  is  an  inheritance  or 
whose  allowance  is  her  own  salary  there  is 
always  a  delightful  sense  of  freedom  in  her 
spending.  "  The  money  is  mine.  I  am  not 
responsible  to  anything  or  to  anybody  in 
the  spending  of  it."  Unfortunately,  this 
129 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

sense  of  freedom  does  not  stop  with  the 
independent  woman.  The  woman  who 
spends  money  given  to  her  by  others  often 
feels  little  responsibility  beyond  the  keep- 
ing of  accounts.  To  be  able  to  say  where 
every  cent  has  been  expended,  without 
thought  about  the  wisdom  or  necessity,  the 
value  or  the  satisfaction  in  the  spending, 
is  many  times  all  that  seems  important  to 
the  spender. 

Women  also  have  strange  ideas  about 
money  as  money.  You  hear  talk  about 
house  money,  pin  money,  birthday  money, 
allowances,  etc.  Some  women  are  respon- 
sible for  the  house  money,  and  spend  that 
with  great  wisdom.  But  pin  money  sug- 
gests thoughtless  spending.  An  allowance 
is  defined  by  one  young  girl  as  "  the  money 
I  never  have  to  think  about  or  count  on 
when  spending  it.  It's  mine."  However,  in 
a  well-ordered  life,  the  question  of  respon- 
sibility must  cover  everything.  If  women 
are  to  claim  true  economic  independence 
and  to  develop  a  power  of  choosing,  they 
cannot  ignore  the  opportunities  thus  created 
for  economic  responsibilities.  If  any  good 

130 


,,  „ 

*• 


-  «  •  • 

Responsibility 

is  to  come  from  the  realization  by  women 
of  their  economic  function,  their  power  to 
affect  economic  conditions  of  production  in 
many  vital  ways,  these  responsibilities  must 
be  studied  and  met.  It  will  not  be  an  easy 
thing  to  accomplish  when  one  realizes  that 
the  two  main  causes  of  irrespon$ibility  are 
selfishness  and  ignorance. 

Usually  it  is  the  ignorance  of  the  spend- 
ing woman  that  causes  her  selfishness. 
Women  do  not  connect  the  things  that 
they  buy  with  any  one  but  themselves.  If 
they  wish  to  buy  cheap  goods,  they  fail  to 
see  how  it  affects  any  one  but  themselves. 
They  do  not  see  that  the  acceptance  of 
cheap  goods  makes  the  possibility  of  having 
fine  goods  offered  them  less  and  less.  As 
long  as  the  store  where  she  shops  is  clean 
and  attractive,  it  does  not  occur  to  the 
woman  that  the  articles  offered  for  sale 
may  have  come  from  conditions  of  unspeak- 
able filth  and  poverty. 

Take  the  much-talked-of  bargain  counter 
as  an  illustration.  It  is  almost  impossible 
to  make  a  woman  see  that  she  could  have 
any  influence  or  responsibility  there.  Even 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

the  intelligent  woman,  who  knows  that  the 
firm  does  not  give  away  two  dollars'  worth 
of  goods  when  an  article  marked  three  dol- 
lars is  sold  for  one  dollar,  feels  that  it  is  a 
personal  matter.  If  she  wishes  to  crowd 
in  and  buy  the  so-called  bargain,  she  can- 
not see  what  business  it  is  of  any  outsider. 
She  does  not  realize  that  there  are  thou- 
sands of  women  who  believe  absolutely  in 
the  weekly  or  yearly  "  sacrifice  "  or  gener- 
osity of  the  stores  which  advertise  bargains, 
and  that  to  these  women  the  supposed  re- 
duction in  price  is  the  greatest  influence 
in  their  spending.  To  these  women  great 
satisfaction  comes  with  the  feeling  that  they 
have  saved  money.  The  article  offered  by 
the  bargain  counter  may  have  been  some- 
thing which  they  never  would  have  dreamed 
of  buying  if  it  had  not  been  marked  re- 
duced, but  the  fact  that  it  was  selling  for 
less  than  the  usual  price  created  the  desire 
to  buy  it.  To  prove  this,  all  that  is  neces- 
sary is  a  comparison  of  the  way  in  which 
the  "  reduced  sale  "  and  bargain  counter  are 
used  in  different  communities.  In  St.  Louis 
one  is  impressed  by  the  absence  of  such 
132 


Responsibility 

signs  in  the  stores,  and  one  who  knows  the 
people  there  states  that  the  reason  for  the 
lack  of  such  inducements  for  the  spenders 
lies  in  the  fact  that  the  great  mass  of  buy- 
ers are  people  of  French  or  German  de- 
scent, whose  hereditary  shrewdness  and  thrift 
lessen  the  power  of  the  bargain  counter  to 
such  an  extent  that  it  is  often  not  a  paying 
venture. 

Great  profits  are  made  at  the  weekly  bar- 
gain counters.  The  "  sacrifice  "  is  there, 
but  it  is  experienced  by  the  buyer  who, 
in  her  effort  to  get  something  for  next  to 
nothing,  carries  away  a  cheap  imitation  or 
a  poorly  made  article,  whose  glory  fades 
quickly  when  subjected  to  hard  use  or  wear. 

There  are  such  things  as  legitimate  bar- 
gains. If  you  buy  shopworn  goods,  you 
take  the  risk  with  your  eyes  open.  If  in 
the  soiled  tablecloth  the  crease  fails  to 
disappear  after  washing,  that  is  your  fault. 
You  bought  it  at  a  reduced  price  with  the 
defect  shown  you.  Out  of  style  goods  are 
often  sold  at  a  reduction,  and  if  you  buy 
them  you  do  so,  not  feeling  that  you  are 
getting  this  season's  goods  cheap,  but  that 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

you  are  getting  last  season's  goods  at  a 
price  which  may  reduce  a  little  the  profits 
of  the  owner.  Such  goods  are  valued  as 
transient  goods,  the  demand  for  which  will 
be  heavy  but  limited.  This  consideration 
enters  into  the  price  the  owner  pays  for 
them,  and  also  affects  the  selling  price. 
Permanent  goods,  the  demand  for  which  is 
steady  and  constant  from  year  to  year,  are 
not  sold  at  a  reduction  unless  there  chances 
to  be  a  flaw  in  the  goods.  White  goods 
offer  great  bargains.  The  goods  are  cheap 
and  are  sold  cheap,  and  considering  the 
wear  they  give  you  get  more  than  you 
paid  for.  The  sacrifice  is  not  with  you  or 
the  store.  The  latter  bought  them  cheap 
and  sold  them  cheap  to  you.  But  there  is 
a  sacrifice,  real,  vital,  and  economic,  which 
is  felt  back  in  the  factory  or  sweatshop, 
where  the  life  and  toil  of  men,  women,  and 
little  children  are  bought  cheap. 

Women  are  responsible  first  for  the 
quality  of  the  goods  offered  to  spenders, 
if  they  are  to  create  better  standards  in  the 
economic  world.  "  Goods "  here  includes 
all  for  which  women  spend,  house  furnish- 


Responsibility 

ings,  silver,  food,  and  dress.  Satisfactorily 
to  affect  the  quality,  every  woman  must 
realize  the  power  of  her  individual  demands 
in  her  spending.  She  has  an  economic 
right  to  demand  good  quality,  instead  of 
allowing  the  producer,  not  only  to  supply 
the  demand,  but  to  have  the  greatest  power 
in  creating  the  demand,  and  to  offer  her 
worthless,  cheap  goods  whenever  it  is  pos- 
sible. There  is  a  striking  example  of  this 
in  ready-made  clothing.  Not  long  ago  a 
woman  said  to  me,  "Why,  I  never  expect 
ready-made  waists  to  stay  together  until  I 
have  restitched  all  the  seams  and  sewed  on 
all  the  hooks  and  eyes."  That  is  just  the 
trouble:  women  do  not  expect  or  demand 
anything  else.  What  ought  to  be  done 
persistently  is  to  return  such,  poorly  made 
garments  until  the  demand  for  better  made 
ones  is  firmly  established. 

But  some  one  says,  "  If  you  pay  enough 
for  such  things  they  will  be  satisfactory." 
That  is  not  quite  true,  for  often  such  things 
happen  with  the  most  expensive  garments* 
If  you  pay  but  seven  dollars  for  a  waist, 
you  have  a  right  to  demand  stitching  that 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

will  hold  together  and  hooks  put  on  to 
stay.  You  cannot  expect  fine  quality  of 
goods,  but  you  can  demand  of  the  man 
who  stands  between  you  and  the  maker 
work  that  is  worth  the  price  he  asks.  In 
this  way  one  may  hope  to  lighten  the 
burden  of  those  who  toil  for  a  starvation 
wage. 

Toy  shops  offer  another  flagrant  illus- 
tration of  poorly  made  goods.  The  buyer 
never  expects  toys  to  hold  together  longer 
than  just  to  get  them  delivered,  and  this 
cheapness  escapes  notice  because  the  child 
is  always  blamed  when  his  toys  fall  to 
pieces.  Of  course  dolls'  furniture  is  not 
made  to  hold  the  weight  of  a  plump  five- 
year-old  maiden ;  but  when  it  will  not  sup- 
port even  the  tiniest  doll,  it  is  not  worth 
the  money  paid  for  it. 

This  general  acceptance  of  cheap  goods 
is  far-reaching  in  its  results.  It  is  forming 
a  national  habit  of  dealing  with  worthless 
imitations  of  the  real  which  affects  not  only 
the  person  buying,  but  also  the  worker. 
President  Eliot  of  Harvard  strikes  a  high 
note  in  his  plea  for  joy  in  labor.  The 
136 


Responsibility 

world  needs  such  a  conception  of  labor. 
Wages  must  cease  to  be  the  only  satisfac- 
tion the  toiler  gains  from  his  work.  To 
accomplish  this,  those  who  labor  must  be 
given  a  chance  to  do  their  work  well. 
There  is  no  joy  in  creating  the  cheap  imi- 
tation of  the  imperfect  real.  A  good  work- 
man takes  pride  in  making  a  thing  well,  in 
putting  in  good  materials,  and  in  turning 
out  an  article  worth  the  time  and  effort  he 
has  spent  in  perfecting  it.  But  when  all 
is  valued  cheap,  his  materials,  his  tools,  his 
time,  his  effort,  his  life,  there  can  be  no  joy, 
no  dignity,  in  his  labor.  The  buyers  are 
responsible  for  this  cheapness  of  goods 
offered  to  them,  because  it  is  the  result 
of  their  acceptance  of  such  goods,  if  not  of 
a  conscious  demand  for  them.  When  they 
demand  the  real  and  the  genuine  they  will 
receive  it. 

The  struggle  for  existence,  biologically, 
is  not  against  odds  which  are  hopeless  to 
start  with,  but  against  natural  enemies, 
which  only  strengthens  the  life  and  makes 
development  possible  for  those  who  sur- 
vive. The  cheap  valuation  of  human  life, 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

the  forcing  of  men  and  women  into  condi- 
tions which  make  the  living  of  life  always 
a  losing  fight,  leaves  the  survivors  weak 
and  diseased,  physically  and  morally ;  under 
such  conditions,  the  fight  to  save  one's  life 
is  only  to  lose  it. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  agitation  today 
about  the  evils  of  adulterated  food  products; 
and  as  some  one  has  said,  "  The  dealers  in 
these  products  not  only  cheat  every  cus- 
tomer to  whom  they  sell  something  sham 
instead  of  the  genuine  thing  they  are  bound 
to  furnish  and  for  which  they  are  paid,  but 
they  are  lowering  the  general  standard  of 
health  and  efficiency  throughout  the  coun- 
try." This  statement  may  be  applied  with 
equal  force  to  the  dealers  in  shams  of  all 
kinds  which  are  offered  to  the  spending 
public.  But  the  responsibility  rests  with 
the  spenders.  When  women  cease  to  con- 
sider economy  as  "getting  things  cheap," 
and  begin  to  realize  that  cheapness  begets 
cheapness;  when  they  know  from  a  study 
of  life  and  its  demands,  both  physical  and 
moral,  that  the  poor  food,  the  cheap  imita- 
tions of  all  sorts,  only  make  their  own 

138 


vJt 


Responsibility 

struggle  for  life,  as  well  as  the  struggle  of 
others,  harder,  the  quality  of  the  goods 
offered  to  them  will  be  changed  for  the 
better.  So  many  women,  even  when  this 
fact  is  pointed  out  to  them,  take  a  resigned, 
helpless  attitude  toward  the  question,  "  What 
can  we  do  ? "  The  reason  for  this  is  that 
they  have  so  far  failed  to  recognize  the 
existence  of  a  mighty  economic  weapon 
which  is  theirs  to  use  with  effect,  for  the 
mere  realization  of  it  —  their  power  to 
demand  a  better  quality.  To  raise  the 
quality  of  goods  produced  to  a  higher  and 
better  standard  is  to  educate  the  woman 
spender  who  does  not  know  the  sham 
from  the  real.  Women  must  meet  this 
responsibility. 

But  there  is  a  still  greater  responsibility 
women  must  accept,  which  will  follow  nat- 
urally the  demand  for  better  quality  —  the 
responsibility  for  the  conditions  of  produc- 
tion. Science  has  done  much  to  inform 
the  people  of  the  dreadful  consequences 
of  unsanitary  conditions  of  production,  but 
science  has  not  been  able  to  do  away  with 
such  conditions.  Much  has  been  accom- 

139 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

plished,  but  as  long  as  there  are  homes 
turned  into  sweatshops;  as  long  as  every 
city,  large  or  small,  has  a  dark  spot  upon 
its  fairness  where  misery  and  want  mark  the 
faces  of  those  who  live  within  its  shadow; 
as  long  as  life  and  labor  are  cheap,  the 
burden  of  responsibility  for  these  awful  con- 
ditions rests  upon  those  who  demand  the 
work  of  another's  hands.  It  will  be  one 
mighty  step  forward  in  the  economic  world 
when  women  succeed  in  drawing  out  a 
better  quality  of  goods,  a  purer  produc- 
tion. But  when  women  make  possible  for 
their  brothers  and  sisters  conditions  of  life 
that  make  their  labor  a  joy,  their  life  worth 
the  living,  the  word  justice  will  begin  to 
have  a  new  meaning  in  the  world  of  life. 

As  the  world  has  lately  been  shown,  it 
is  not  easy  to  change  such  conditions. 
The  task  seems  a  giant  one,  and  to  many 
people  the  whole  subject  is  so  far  removed 
from  their  own  lives  and  interests  that  they 
feel  helpless,  powerless  to  give  any  aid 
whatsoever.  First  there  must  be  a  sym- 
pathy among  all  those  who  would  help; 
the  producer,  the  middleman,  the  maker, 
140 


Responsibility 

and  the  buyer  must  be  united  by  a  common 
sympathy  before  they  can  help  each  other. 
No  scheme  of  reform,  no  lasting  betterment 
of  conditions,  can  be  accomplished  without 
this  bond.  Without  it,  a  change  of  con- 
ditions comes  slowly.  The  National  Con- 
sumers' League  is  fighting  its  way  to  the 
front.  Its  effort  to  fix  responsibility  upon 
producers  has  been  and  is  a  great  task,  but 
it  has  been  easier  than  to  force  a  sense 
of  responsibility  upon  consumers.  Charity 
organizations  for  years  have  made  their 
appeals  for  the  relief  of  conditions  in  the 
homes  of  the  toilers,  in  the  tenements  of 
city  and  town ;  and  from  the  emotional, 
religious,  and  truly  brotherly  they  have  re- 
ceived hearty  support.  But  the  miserable 
conditions  steadily  increased,  and  men  began 
to  investigate,  not  only  home  conditions,  but 
toil  conditions.  It  was  none  of  their  busi- 
ness, but  persistence  revealed  unspeakable 
horrors,  and  the  public  became  anxious. 

It   was  not    until    the   spender   was  told 
by   unquestioned   authority   that    from   the 
crowded,  disease-breeding  rooms   of   sweat- 
shop  and    factory,    where    the    other    half 
141 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

toiled,  a  pathway  led  by  way  of  the  shop 
counter  straight  to  their  own  sheltered, 
much-loved  homes,  and  that  along  it  sick- 
ness and  death  passed  quickly,  that  the 
spender  acted.  The  National  Consumers' 
League  has  as  one  of  its  principal  demands 
decent  sanitary  conditions  for  working  men 
and  women,  and  it  has  accomplished  much 
by  direct  inspection  of  and  legislation  against 
all  places  failing  to  meet  such  requirements. 
But  even  the  motive  to  preserve  and  protect 
one's  own  has  brought  slow  results.  A  few 
cannot  fight  the  battle  alone.  The  women 
who  do  "  ninety  per  cent  of  the  buying " 
must  realize  their  power  in  creating  a 
demand  for  better  conditions. 

When  women  read  Mrs.  Van  Vorst's 
book,  "  The  Woman  Who  Toils,"  they  are 
strongly  impressed,  and  their  first  desire  is 
to  do  something  to  help;  but  unless  a 
practical  means  of  accomplishing  some  real, 
lasting  good  within  the  reach  of  all  women 
can  be  suggested,  indifference  will  follow  as 
time  causes  the  strong,  vivid  pictures  that 
book  gives  to  fade  from  their  minds.  This 
work  cannot  be  done  by  any  organization, 
142 


. 

_^ 

Y«L-*  -) 

Responsibility 

but  it  must  be  accomplished  by  the  gradual 
education  of  women  in  the  spending  of 
money.  The  idea  that  all  help  must  be 
organized  is  not  true,  and  tends  to  under- 
value individual  effort.  Not  long  ago  a 
young  college  graduate  said  to  me,  "  I  am 
very  much  interested  in  all  the  problems 
of  settlement  work,  but  father  won't  hear  of 
my  going  into  a  settlement  to  work,  so  I 
am  deprived  of  the  chance  of  helping." 
This  is  not  modesty,  but  ignorance.  A 
woman  does  not  have  to  go  to  a  settlement 
or  trade  school  to  help.  It  is  comparatively 
easy  to  secure  workers  for  such  places. 

Women,  as  a  rule,  are  quick  to  respond 
to  an  appeal,  and  are  most  generous  in  their 
gifts  to  charity.  But  it  is  not  so  easy  to 
make  women  form  the  habit  of  responsible 
spending.  What  does  responsible  spending 
mean  ?  It  means  spending  for  house,  for 
dress,  for  children,  for  servants,  with  a  clear 
knowledge  of  the  highest  physical,  moral, 
and  spiritual  needs.  It  means  spending  un- 
selfishly, helpfully,  with  a  thought  for  those 
who  sell  life's  wares,  and  a  sympathy  for 
those  who  toil.  It  means  spending  to  con- 
143 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

struct  higher  standards  of  living,  worthy  of 
imitation,  "  choosing  the  best  instead  of  the 
good." 

Such  spending  is  giving,  royal  giving,  of 
oneself  to  others.  The  need  of  such  spend- 
ing is  great.  It  is  a  most  practical  way  of 
helping  the  thousands  of  women  who  en- 
dure conditions  pictured  by  Mrs.  Van  Vorst, 
for  the  sake  of  earning  extra  money  to  spend 
upon  clothes,  and  at  the  same  time  it  lessens 
the  work  for  the  settlements.  The  sacrifice 
these  women  make  for  clothes  is  of  the 
greatest  importance.  Mrs.  Van  Vorst  sug- 
gests industrial  classes  and  hand  work  at 
home  for  these  girls  who  sacrifice  life  for 
money  to  spend  for  the  "mere  semblance 
of  luxury."  This  would  better  physically, 
at  least,  these  willing  toilers,  and  at  the 
same  time  raise  the  wage  of  those  who 
work  for  the  necessities  of  life. 

But  the  woman  who  toils  cries  out  to  the 
woman  who  spends  at  costumers,  over  bar- 
gain counters,  in  the  crowded  market  place, 
and  she  must  be  answered.  It  is  the  old 
question  of  demand  and  supply.  Women 
must  come  into  intelligent  association  with 
144 


Responsibility 

those,  who  supply  their  demands.  This  may 
seem  impracticable,  but  there  are  women 
who  are  today  reaping  the  reward  of  such 
methods ;  women  who  have  given  time  and 
strength  and  thought  to  the  interests  of 
those  who  serve  them,  and  in  return  receive 
the  more  perfect  service.  I  met,  not  long 
ago,  a  woman  of  large,  forceful  mind  and 
bigness  of  heart,  who  "  shops  "  from  such  a 
basis;  and  in  reply  to  my  question  as  to 
the  value  of  the  method,  she  said :  "  It  pays, 
if  only  in  a  purely  selfish  way.  The  people 
with  whom  I  trade  know  me  and  I  know 
them,  and  the  common  interest  gives  me 
the  best  results  in  my  spending.  It  saves 
time,  effort,  and  money,  and  I  receive  the 
best  in  return.  I  make  it  my  business  to 
know  the  conditions  under  which  articles 
I  buy  are  made,  and  in  consequence  I  am 
offered  goods  I  can  buy  with  a  clear 


conscience." 


This  idea  of  responsibility  is  not  a  dream 
of  a  possible  Utopia,  but  a  suggestion  of  a 
practical  business  method  which  would  give 
better  results  in  spending  for  the  whole 
range  of  life.  It  will  give  the  woman  with 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

the  vision  of  helpfulness  a  means  of  reali- 
zing her  vision.  It  will  make  it  easier  for 
her  to  supply  the  vital  needs  of  those  for 
whom  she  spends.  It  will  make  her  inde- 
pendence a  blessing  to  those  less  free.  The 
power  of  wise  choice  will  make  her  influ- 
ence among  women  more  noble,  more  up- 
lifting. Satisfaction  of  body,  mind,  and 
spirit  will  follow  the  living  of  the  larger 
life,  the  life  in  which  the  brotherhood  of 
man  is  no  longer  a  creed,  but  a  living 
spirit;  the  life  in  which  the  common  task 
is  done  joyfully;  the  life  in  whichx  the  prac- 
tical side  has  become  a  means  of  perfecting 
the  highest  moral  and  spiritual  development. 
But  the  assumption  of  such  a  responsi- 
bility will  come  slowly,  as  women  are  grad- 
ually educated  in  their  spending  powers. 
Ignorance  of  possibilities  and  results  keeps 
many  from  the  path.  But  ignorance  is  not 
the  greatest  barrier.  Knowledge  of  things 
and  conditions  is  comparatively  easy  to 
acquire  today,  when  the  results  of  investi- 
gation, the  problems  to  be  solved,  the  pos- 
sible solutions,  are  within  the  reach  of  the 
majority  of  people.  Selfishness  will  make 
146 


Responsibility 

the  progress  in  responsible  spending  slow. 
It  will  not  be  because  a  woman  does  not 
think,  does  not  know,  but  because  she  does 
not  care. 


HOW? 


&. 


+ r 


CHAPTER   VII 

HOW? 

A  CCOUNTS!  I  know  this  is  a  most 
^*  dangerous  way  to  begin.  The  reader 
may  toss  the  book  aside  at  once.  To  be 
faced  by  that  word  in  which  one's  faith  has 
been  shaken  so  often !  But  be  patient  with 
me.  Surely  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
the  way  to  make  a  fair  test  of  our  theories 
is  to  collect  positive  data  in  regard  to  them. 
How  can  we  know  how  we  are  spending, 
with  what  degree  of  satisfaction  or  respon- 
sibility, if  we  do  not  know  for  what  we 
spend  ? 

After  coming  to  a  most  keen  realization 
of  what  an  obstacle  I  was  in  the  way  of 
proving  my  own  theories,  I  found  two  dis- 
tinct attitudes  toward  keeping  accounts,  and 
as  I  have  held  rigidly  both  attitudes,  I  feel 
free  to  criticise.  The  first  one  was  this  — 
that  keeping  accounts  in  the  "  proper  "  way 
meant  too  much  time ;  to  keep  a  daily 
account  in  a  large  book  with  a  column 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

dedicated  to  each  conceivable  expenditure 
became  a  study.  I  was  lost  in  a  system ; 
different  colored  inks  for  each  vegetable, 
the  discouraging  emptiness  of  columns  ar- 
ranged for  "  Art,"  "  Amusements,"  "  Books," 
all  the  things  I  longed  to  spend  for  and 
had  so  little  to  devote  to  them.  The  food 
column  seemed  so  greedy.  Then,  too,  I 
couldn't  remember  for  minutes  at  a  time 
anything  but  car  fare  that  I  had  spent.  I 
could  not  carry  a  large  account  book  under 
my  arm  constantly,  and  I  was  so  impressed 
with  the  fact  that  keeping  daily  accounts 
was  a  serious  and  most  weighty  affair  that 
nothing  but  an  elaborate  system  could  pos- 
sibly serve  me.  It  looked  so  workable  and 
seemed  planned  to  save  me  time  and  money 
and  thought.  But  it  did  not.  It  took  more 
time  than  I  had  to  give,  and  I  found  myself 
saying  what  many  had  said  to  me,  "  That 
is  all  very  well  if  one  has  nothing  else  to 
do,  but  I  have  not  the  time  to  give." 

There  are  women  whose  brains  seem  to 
divide  into  systematic  columns  without  the 
slightest  effort,  and  who  find  it  easy  to  keep 
such  a  daily  specialized  account  book.  To 

152 


How? 

them  I  need  not  appeal,  but  to  those  who 
"  have  no  head  for  figures  "  I  dare  to  make 
this  suggestion  —  keep  a  daily  cash  account 
in  a  small  book  which  you  can  carry  with 
you.  At  the  end  of  the  month  you  can 
take  down  the  large  book  and  enter  the 
different  items  under  the  heads  assigned 
to  them,  picking  them  out  from  your  daily 
accounts.  But  keep  the  daily  account  as 
you  spend.  It  may  make  you  conspicuous 
at  first.  You  may  be  thought  a  reporter 
or  an  investigator.  One  afternoon  I  had 
bought  a  veil  in  a  big  shop  and  was  leaving 
that  department  to  go  to  another  when  the 
floorwalker  said  to  me,  "  I  beg  your  pardon, 
but  would  you  mind  telling  me  what  was 
wrong  at  that  counter  before  you  report  at 
the  office  ? "  When  I  assured  him  that  I 
had  merely  entered  the  amount  of  my  pur- 
chase, his  expression  said  more  plainly  than 
words :  "  Well,  you  are  queer.  You  ought 
to  be  watched." 

The   daily   account   is   most   convincing. 

So  many  women  have  said,  "  Why,  I   had 

no  idea  how  much  I  was  spending  for  trifles 

until  I  kept  an  account"     Or,  "  I   had   no 

153 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

idea  that  another  course  at  dinner  made 
such  a  difference  in  the  month's  expendi- 
tures." If  we  know  what  we  have  done 
with  our  money  we  are  then  able  to  meas- 
ure our  spending  by  our  theories.  If  we 
really  care  about  knowing  how  to  be  most 
useful  and  forceful  in  the  spending  of  what- 
ever sum  of  money  may  be  ours  to  spend, 
we  will  stop  guessing  about  it  and  know 
definitely  our  successes  and  our  failures. 

But  some  say,  "  My  check  book  is  all 
I  need  in  this  matter  of  accounts."  The 
check  book  does  account,  in  the  most  final 
manner,  for  all  bills  paid  in  that  way,  but 
we  find  in  it  no  record  of  the  checks  cashed 
for  our  own  use.  It  does  not  account  for 
our  cash  expenditures,  and  to  many  those 
are  just  as  important  to  know  as  the  large 
bills  paid  by  check.  The  check  book  is 
but  part  of  a  whole,  and  for  this  reason 
is  incomplete  and  unsatisfactory. 

The  daily  account  adds  to  one's  sense  of 
responsibility,  not  only  for  the  money  we 
spend,  but  for  the  things  for  which  we 
spend.  When  the  figures  spell  waste,  ex- 
travagance, foolishness,  if  we  think  at  all, 

154 


How  ? 

we  try  to  avoid  repetition.  A  teacher  once 
said  to  me :  "  I  went  abroad  for  my  vacation 
the  summer  after  my  first  winter  of  keeping 
track  of  my  money.  I  began  to  keep  ac- 
counts just  to  prove  to  my  friends  that  I 
was  not  as  extravagant  as  they  claimed. 
The  result  was  most  gratifying  to  them, 
but  I  assure  you  it  convinced  me  abso- 
lutely how  valuable  and  instructive  such 
an  account  was." 

The  other  attitude  toward  the  daily 
account  book  which  is  very  difficult  to 
meet  is  found  in  the  emphatic  statement 
of  many  women :  "  I  never  can  balance. 
What  is  the  use  of  keeping  accounts  ? " 
The  feminine  scorn  of  accounts  which  do 
not  balance  is  as  unreasonable  as  it  is 
humorous.  Why,  because  you  do  not  know 
what  you  have  done  with  fifty  cents,  it  is 
of  no  value  or  consequence  to  know  where 
you  have  put  fifty  dollars,  is  most  ridicu- 
lous. "  But,"  says  my  excited  friend,  "  do 
you  mean  to  tell  me  that  you  advocate 
keeping  accounts  when  you  cannot  balance 
them  ?  Why  do  you  keep  accounts  if  you 
don't  intend  to  balance  them  ?  "  Then  we 
155 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

both  laugh,  because  we  really  care  a  good 
deal  about  this  subject.  That  is  just  the 
difficulty.  We  do  not  keep  accounts  pri- 
marily to  balance  them.  We  like  to  have 
them  balance  —  there  is  a  most  exquisite 
satisfaction  in  such  a  result ;  but  if  "  they  " 
refuse  to  —  and  that  is  the  way  inanimate 
figures  on  a  page  always  seem  to  delight 
in  behaving  —  our  accounts  still  retain  for 
us  all  the  original  value  we  claim  for  them. 
There  is  no  necessity  for  locking  oneself 
in  a  room  until  the  fifty  cents  is  found. 
That  is  a  method  used  in  a  bank,  but  is 
not  necessary  in  the  keeping  of  household 
and  personal  accounts.  The  daily  accounts 
are  a  record  not  only  of  amounts  of  our 
expenditures,  but  of  the  things  for  which 
we  spend.  If  this  were  not  the  case,  we 
would  simply  number  our  purchases  and 
save  time,  instead  of  entering  the  thing 
purchased.  The  great  educational  value  of 
knowing  how  our  money  is  spent  cannot 
be  overestimated.  The  daily  account  book 
is  the  best  text-book  for  us,  because  it  is 
so  practical,  so  accessible,  and  so  adapted 
to  individual  cases.  A  usual  complaint 

156 


How? 

against  any  text-book  on  such  subject  is, 
"  Very  true,  perhaps,  but  it  does  not  fit  my 
case."  You  cannot  so  dismiss  your  own 
book  on  the  subject.  You  can  feel  sure 
of  the  facts. 

This  is  a  time  of  agitations.  Many 
causes  claim  our  attention  and  so  many 
things  seem  so  much  more  worth  our 
time  and  effort  than  a  daily  account  book. 
When  we  hear  the  cry  of  the  underpaid, 
underfed,  unskilled  working  girl,  we  long 
for  money  to  place  behind  her  efforts  to 
get  a  chance  to  work  under  decent  condi- 
tions for  a  wage  that  will  enable  her  to  live. 
When  we  hear  the  reports  of  the  National 
Child  Labor  Committee,  we  feel  the  need 
of  money  to  press  home  the  rights  of  the 
children  of  this  nation  to  the  things  that 
make  for  life,  to  the  right  to  live,  to  learn, 
to  laugh,  and  to  play.  Because  we  have 
but  little,  perhaps,  to  give,  we  feel  that  we 
can  only  look  on  and  cheer  the  efforts  of 
others.  If  we  could  but  see  in  our  daily  \ 
account  book  the  mighty  weapon  which  / 
lies  behind  its  pages ;  if  we  could  grasp 
the  tremendous  possibilities  of  responsible 
157 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

spending  and  look  upon  our  money,  what- 
ever the  amount,  as  the  greatest  gift  we 
could  give  when  we  spend  it  with  a  true 
appreciation  of  its  power  to  change  the 
conditions  we  deplore,  some  change  vital 
to  the  life  of  the  nation  would  surely  come. 
It  is  not  a  sensational  method  of  helping 
and  for  that  reason  it  is  overlooked  by 
many.  It  is  so  quiet  that  many  think  it 
ineffective,  but  any  study  of  the  power  to 
demand  is  most  convincing.  Any  manu- 
facturer, any  storekeeper,  any  dealer  in  the 
world  of  things  to  buy  and  sell  will  tell  you 
how  keenly  he  listens  for  the  "demand." 
Indeed  it  is  so  important  a  part  of  any 
business  that  the  entire  matter  of  adver- 
tising is  only  another  way  of  creating  the 
demand,  of  educating  (?)  public  opinion  in 
the  direction  of  particular  commodities. 
The  way  of  demand  is  slow,  but  it  is 
steady  and  sure.  We  are  an  impatient 
people.  We  have  accomplished  so  much 
in  a  comparatively  short  time  that  slow 
processes  are,  in  a  measure,  scorned.  We 
want  things  done  quickly,  and  we  have 
fallen  more  or  less  into  the  habit  of  sub- 

158 


How? 

jecting  everything  to  a  speed  test.  Respon- 
sible spending  is  a  slow  educational  process 
which  must  surely  come  if  we  are  to  have 
any  lasting  betterment  of  conditions  of 
labor. 

In  the  world  of  those  who  woik  directly 
with  the  problems  of  such  conditions  we 
find  two  groups  of  thinkers;  first,  those 
whose  minds  and  hearts  are  so  stirred  by 
the  facts  which  their  work  reveals  to  them 
that  any  suggested  cure  for  the  evils  which 
takes  time  fills  them  with  a  divine  impa- 
tience, and  they  array  themselves  with  the 
radical  reformers  for  whom  the  "  ought "  in 
life  has  far  outstripped  the  practical  "  how." 
The  second  group  is  largely  recruited  from 
the  first,  and  we  find  in  it  those  who  have 
learned  that  no  reform,  however  splendid, 
is  secure  until  it  rests  upon  the  intelligence 
of  those  it  seeks  to  benefit.  In  the  life  of 
William  Morris  we  find  a  most  forceful 
illustration  of  this.  That  wonderful,  crea. 
tive  workman,  whose  hidden  fire  was  his 
love  for  his  fellow-workman,  was  so  moved 
by  the  injustice  which  he  saw  in  the  world 
of  work,  so  filled  with  the  passion  to  help, 
159 


The  Woman  Who  Spends 

that  he  flung  his  splendid  talents  and 
strength  into  the  radical  group,  demanding 
revolution,  if  necessary,  to  change  the  con- 
ditions which  were  so  truly  deplorable.  But 
the  time  came  when  he  realized  that  force 
could  not  change  human  nature,  that  the 
very  ones  he  sought  to  benefit  were  block- 
ing the  way  by  their  inability  to  use  the 
weapons  which  he  sought  for  them.  And 
we  find  Morris  withdrawing  from  the  active 
warfare,  sitting  patiently  by  his  workman, 
and  teaching  him  at  his  own  workbench 
the  value  of  his  work  and  his  toil. 

Therefore  let  us  not  despise  the  slow, 
quiet  method.  Those  of  us  who  have  what 
are  called  "  average  means "  are  the  ones 
after  all  who  have  the  greatest  power  to 
demand.  The  fallacious  argument  that  we 
do  not  count  in  the  spending  world  unless 
we  have  much  is  responsible  for  the  lack 
of  force  we  have  had.  Our  ignorance  has 
made  us  ineffective. 

So,  after  all,  the  suggestion  this  chapter 
has  to  make  is  just  this  —  keep  a  daily 
account  of  what  you  spend,  whether  you 
balance  or  not,  and  study  it  thoughtfully. 

1 60 


How? 

It  will  teach  you  much  about  yourself  that 
you  never  knew  before.  It  will  suggest 
more  to  you  in  matters  of  spending  than 
half  a  dozen  books.  It  will  be  a  most  con- 
vincing proof  of  your  wastefulness  if  you 
are  wasteful,  of  your  extravagance  if  you  are 
extravagant,  of  your  independence,  of  your 
good  sense,  if  you  possess  these  qualities. 
It  will  deepen  your  sense  of  responsibility 
for  what  you  have,  which  leads  to  a  closer 
sympathy  for  those  who  have  not.  And 
that  seems  to  the  writer  of  this  little 
book  the  great  privilege  of  the  woman  who 
spends  much  or  little.  It  is  in  her  power 
to  so  spend  that  the  woman  who  toils  may 
have  her  chance  to  earn  a  living  wage  under 
decent  conditions. 


161 


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